Exodus- Part 1" Bondage" Series

Exodus

Part 1

“Bondage”

Exodus 1:1-17

Genesis 15:

Psalm 105

This morning with your blessing I would like to begin a sermon series and bible study plan on the 2nd book of the bible

Exodus

It once again is my desire to show you not only the relevance of the Old Testament

But to show you Jesus

To show you God’s plan of redemption

And

To show you ourselves in the stories and lives of those who were trying to live in Covenant with God

As I was praying

And reading

And studying

And contemplating what to preach for this first of many sermons from this great book

I kept coming up against a brick wall

I truly believed in my heart as I read Exodus 1

And as I read about the slavery of God’s children

That I needed to preach about

Slavery

Bondage

Slavery to sin and how we get ourselves into these messes

And we are going to go there just a bit

But

As I read scripture and prayed and studied

I realized that I was trying to make the bible say what I wanted it to say

Instead of preaching it for what it was

I was following a common patter

Many preachers before preached this material in just such a way

And those sermons were sometimes powerful

Life changing

But

They all took liberties with scripture

So I saw that we needed to go another way

To change the focus if you will

Before I get into the meat

Let me tell you a little story

First off

Let me tell you

My God

Is amazing

In more ways than one

But For me

When I begin to prepare for a message

God in his wisdom and his grace

Gives this hard headed Cowboy

Analogies from my life

Either past things or new things

To tie in with his word to

Make “His word “more understandable for me and prayerfully for you

And today is no different

Back in January

Patti and I bought a new bull

He is just a young bull, not much more than a big calf

Patti for some reason

Has called him

Knot head since we got him home

Now I am not sure what I wanted to name the little bull

But

I can assure you it was not

Knot head

Last week

He earned his name

And now he will forever be known as knot head

We went out to feed and hay the cows last week

All the cows and calves

And all the horses and mules were there with the exception of Knot head

We got to looking for him and noticed him down in a little stand of trees close to where I feed hay

He was just standing there

At least we thought

He had not jumped the fence into the neighbors place’

Cause I really like this little bull

But will not put up with a bull that won’t stay home

So as usual

Patti got a sack of cubes to feed

While I got the tractor to put out hay

As I came to the gate with the tractor

She had shut the cows up in the pen

And walked down to check on knot head

Patti was yelling and waving her arms for me to come

She had discovered why he was just standing there

Why he did not come when the others came

He had gotten himself into a mess

And earned his name

There was a forked tree in that little clump of trees

And the little bull

Either by scratching an itch

Curiosity

Boredom

Or who knows why or how

Had stuck his head through the fork and he was STUCK

This was very funny but also very scary

Many times I have found dead cattle from a similar situation

But fortunately he had not been in his predicament long

But he was in a mess

And

The harder he tried to get out

The more stuck he got

Every time he would try and back up

He would lower his head and that big old knot head and his ears would stop him

He was getting tired

And

He needed help

He needed to be rescued

So

After a lot of sweat and shear force

We were able to calm him down

And he allowed us to get him out of the mess he had gotten himself into

I’m not sure Bulls have the ability to reason

I’m not sure how much they truly understand

But I believe Knot head understands more than I want to give him credit for

Because

He sure kicked up his heals when we got him out of that mess

I don’t know if he really understood

Why or how he got in this mess