What It Takes to Believe
Believe: What it Takes to Believe
Key Bible Verses
Exodus Chapters 3-12
Digging Deeper
Believing in and heeding God’s call involves aligning one's life, choices, and behavior with divine principles and values.
Here are some ways to act in obedience and service, which enables us to listen to God, be obedient to Him, and bring God glory.
Live with purpose by seeking God’s guidance through prayer, meditation, and Scripture to understand God’s purpose. Use your talents and resources to positively impact the world.
Serve others by showing compassion, love, and forgiveness to others, helping those in need through acts of kindness, charity, and volunteering, and being the hands and feet of Jesus throughout daily life.
Share beliefs respectfully and lovingly with others, living out biblical principles.
Cultivate spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, Bible study, and evangelism while developing qualities like humility, patience, gratitude, self-control, and generosity.
Care for creation by protecting and respecting the environment, knowing God created the heavens and the earth.
Engage in worship by practicing prayer, worship, engaging in community gatherings, offering gratitude, and acknowledging God’s presence, honoring and glorifying God.
Be an advocate and champion who is willing to stand up against injustice, who advocates fairness, and acts ethically, and who operates and reflects care for all things God created.
Ultimately, believing and heeding God means living in a way that reflects faith and draws others closer to God’s divine love and truth.
What Not To Miss
What does it take to BELIEVE? What will it take for people to BELIEVE?
Main Points
To BELIEVE in the LORD (for Peace, Redemption, and Purpose) will require you to HEED His CALL.
To BELIEVE will require you to HEED.
If you don’t HEED, you don’t BELIEVE.
What is HEED?
Listen + Obedience = HEED
Forces that work against you to believe:
Objections.
Obstructions.
Obstacles.
God’s Work for you to believe:
God will SEEK you out.
God will give you SIGNS.
God will provide SUPPORT.
Moses
Moses was IN NEED of ultimate PURPOSE.
Through the burning bush experience, God is restoring Moses’ ultimate purpose in life.
God has come down to meet with Moses and restore and renew Moses’ greater purpose.
Moses responds by giving God five objections of why he cannot answer God’s call and purpose for his life.
Objection #1: Why Me? Who am I?
Objection #2: Who do I tell them sent me?
Objection #3: What if they don’t believe or listen to me?
Objection #4: I cannot speak well.
Objection #5: Please send someone else
God meets Moses' objections in the middle. God says, “What about your brother Aaron?”
God gives Moses signs, and now God gives Moses support.
At the end of the conversation, Moses will join God in His purpose and will become the conduit by which God brings redemption, peace, and purpose for His people and the nations.
Israel
Israel was IN NEED of REDEMPTION.
Moses shares the message God sent through him.
Israel does not believe, Moses shows signs, and they believe.
Their belief is short-lived, and when Pharaoh increases the labor and oppression of the Israelites, Pharaoh creates an OBSTRUCTION to BELIEVE.
Israel was ready to BELIEVE, but with this OBSTRUCTION, they lost, quickly, their BELIEF.
Moses has a word with the Lord, and the Lord continues to urge Moses to BELIEVE and keep at it. Moses returns to the people and tells them what God has said, but they do not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor.
People who want to BELIEVE are looking for something or someone to BELIEVE in; they want to be redeemed, they want to be forgiven, they want to get out of the hole, they want to be renewed, they want to be restored, they want to be free!
Redemption leads to deeper/darker experiences before you experience the freedom, release, and deliverance that redemption brings.
Those deeper/darker experiences become the OBSTRUCTIONS to keep us enslaved.
Pharaoh/Egypt
Pharaoh/Egypt was IN NEED of PEACE.
They BELIEVE WITHIN and see themselves as the solution to PEACE. Their peace was threatened, and they looked within their established framework to keep their PEACE. This worked TEMPORARILY.
Moses threatens Pharaoh’s and Egypt’s PEACE.
Pharaoh does not want to relinquish his worldview and beliefs and to BELIEVE in YHWH.
Pharaoh and Egypt's OBSTACLE is their current, broken, flawed, and deceptive WORLDVIEW.
The Lord will magnify the signs and wonders to begin eliminating the obstacles of the Egyptians and the obstructions of the Israelites that keep them suspended in UNBELIEF.
The signs and wonders will be displayed through a series of 10 plagues which express:
God’s power over Pharaoh and Egypt.
God’s power and judgment over Egypt’s gods.
God’s promise to redeem His people.
God’s purpose to make Himself known among the nations.
Where are our SIGNS and WONDERS?
Our signs and wonders happened almost 2000 years ago in Jesus’ incarnation, His life, death, and resurrection.
Jesus is the SIGN of all signs and the WONDER of all wonders!
What’s the result?
Israel and a mixed multitude will BELIEVE!
They will HEED and begin making their way out of Egypt to the Land of Promise.
Conclusion:
Do you BELIEVE? Do you BELIEVE in Jesus?
Do you BELIEVE Jesus is the answer and solution for your REDEMPTION?
Do you BELIEVE Jesus is the answer and solution for your PEACE?
Do you BELIEVE Jesus is the answer and solution for your ultimate PURPOSE?
Are you HEEDING what you say you BELIEVE?
Are you LISTENING and OBEYING Jesus?
Are you following Jesus?
Are you walking with and walking after Jesus?
Are you obeying His commands?
Life Application
If we believe in God and heed what He says in the Bible, we will be called to take action. These actions might be small, or they might be significant and life-impacting. This week, contemplate what actions you feel God is calling you to take. What is one specific area you believe God is calling you to look at and explore or act on?
Small Group Discussion Questions
What is your favorite action movie with a hero who came in to save the day?
How did God call Moses to believe and heed?
How did Israel heed what God was sharing with them through Moses?
What signs and wonders were performed to challenge the obstacles that Pharaoh and the Egyptians faced?
Where is God calling you to believe and heed in your life?
Daily Devotional Bible Passages
Day 1: Action-Proverbs 16:3; Ecclesiastes 9:10; Joshua 1:9
Day 2: Obedience-Deuteronomy 13:4; Isaiah 6;8; John 14:15
Day 3: Disobedience-Deuteronomy 28:15; James 4;17; Matthew 7:26-27
Day 4: Doubt-Psalm 78:19-22; James 1:6-8; John 20:27
Day 5: Confidence-Hebrews 10:35-36; Isaiah 32:17; Jeremiah 17:7
Prayer
Lord, I believe that you are a God of promises who never fails. You have called me to walk by faith and not by sight, to trust in and heed Your plans even when the path is unclear. Lord, I believe in You, Your power, goodness, and faithfulness. Because of this belief, I ask for the courage to act faithfully, heeding and obeying what you are calling me to do according to Your will.
Help me not to be timid and to step forward boldly, not out of fear or self-reliance, but out of trust in who You are. Strengthen me to move boldly and definitively when You say, “go,” to act confidently when You say, “act,” and to trust wholeheartedly when You say, “wait.” Forgive me for the times I’ve not heeded or allowed doubt to hold me back. Renew my heart and mind, and assure me that You go before me, equipping me for every good work You’ve prepared in advance for me to do.
May the world see through my obedient actions that You are my God, worthy of trust and praise. Fill me with Your Spirit so that everything I do is done for Your glory and according to Your purpose in obedience. I surrender my actions and plans to You, knowing that Your ways are better than mine. I pray for wisdom to know what steps to take, strength to carry them out, and peace to rest contentedly in Your guidance.
