Before We Get Started

For our discussion today, we will be using the sermon series discussion guides. If you would like to follow along you can access this discussion guide on the website at mosaicchurchaustin.com and then select “community group resources” in the menu options.

Prayer

Because the primary goal of our time together is to establish relationships and learn how to walk with one another in all that God has called us to be and do, we’d like to begin by praying for one another. So, does anyone have anything you’d like us to pray for or anything to share regarding how you’ve seen God moving in your life that we can celebrate together?

This Week’s Topic

Making a Mosaic

Today’s Topic

The Origin Story

Discussion Questions

Exodus 1:1-22,2:1-10

 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.

Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.

So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

Culturally Subversive

In the message, we heard that God commanded Pharoah to, “Let my people go so that they may worship Me.”

How do you imagine the Israelites’ forced labor impeded their ability to worship God freely?

What messages in our modern culture distract and impede us from prioritizing worshiping God?

How does being a part of a local church help you prioritize your freedom to worship God? How does your participation in a larger community of faith create greater freedom for others to worship God?

Theologically Subversive

In the message, we heard that narratives in the Old Testament are meant to teach us who God is.

How did God work for the good of the Israelites despite Pharoah’s harshness and cruelty?

When you think of God as a rescuer, what other Bible stories come to mind?

The Israelites didn’t seem to be aware that God was moving on their behalf. What practices or perspectives can help us remember that God works in hidden ways when we can’t see him moving in our challenging circumstances?

Personally Subversive

In the message, we heard that God works through people society deems weak and powerless, those it has treated as outsiders and made vulnerable by denying them an authoritative or valued voice.

What do you imagine motivated of the midwives mentioned in the narrative to act subversively against Pharaoh’s rule to kill male infants?

Can you name other examples of times when the choices of a few “insignificant” people made a lasting, significant impact on the world?

In light of your personal significance in God’s kingdom, where has God placed you to strategically bring about his will in the word?

Closing Time

One of our core values at Mosaic is Worship. In Webster’s 1828 dictionary, worship is defined as:

“Chiefly and eminently, the act of paying divine honors to the Supreme Being; or the reverence and homage paid to him in religious exercises, consisting in adoration, confession, prayer, thanksgiving and the like.”

 

In the final moments of your time together, take turns sharing either one thing you are thankful for about God, or one need you have brought to him in faith. Then pray as a group, giving God praise and asking for him to meet the needs of all present.