Temple Cambridge

Happy Father's Day! This Sunday we begin a new two-week series entitled F.I.T. from 1 Timothy 4. We will get back to the Book of Exodus in July, but before you go on vacation, I want to you thinking staying F.I.T. this summer. F.I.T. stands for Faithful, Involved and Tied. As we have been journeying with the Israelites through the wilderness, we need to learn how to stay F.I.T. in times when we are ill-equipped and seem to lack resources. This Sunday we will learn how to be faithful and yet involved as fathers, but more importantly, as church family members. When we are in our wilderness times, may we look to the Lord to help us stay F.I.T.

Imagine observing Passover for the first time! You are in Egypt after hundreds of years of seeing your people in slavery. You wondered whether God had forgotten about you but then He showed up in power sending nine plagues defeating the Egyptian gods. Now, Moses tells you to prepare to leave Egypt. But first you need to make unleavened bread and slaughter a lamb putting blood on the mantle of your door because God is sending the angel of death to kill all the firstborn in Egypt who aren’t covered by the blood. And to this day, the Jews celebrate Passover. In fact, Jewish children will ask four questions on Passover night: 1) Why is only matzah (unleavened bread) eaten? 2) Why are bitter herbs consumed? 3) Why is food dipped twice? 4) Why does everyone recline?Do you know the answers? Does your family know the answers? And do you know what the Passover points to Christ? Come this Sunday to find out as we study Exodus 12.

One of the charges people often make of God is that He is harsh and cruel. He just powers up over people. They say something like this: “Why would God send innocent people to hell for all eternity?” If Pharaoh during the time of the Israelite slavery in Egypt is an indicator of God’s interactions with people who reject Him, then let’s remember that God gave Pharaoh and the Egyptians 10 opportunities to repent. And now God takes the firstborn sons from Pharaoh and the Egyptians. You will recall from Exodus 1 that an earlier Pharaoh and the Egyptians had killed many of the Hebrew baby boys. But God was not a vengeful God. Why? Come out this Sunday to discover more about God as we open up His Word to Exodus 11.

Back in 2019, you sent Lori and me to Togo, West Africa, to see how clean water projects turn people far from God into receiving Christ as Saviour and Lord, and how new churches are planted. It is not a stretch to see how clean water leads to the message of Jesus giving living water. In Canada, we often take clean drinking water for granted. However, this is not the case in most parts of the world. It certainly was not the case in ancient Egypt when the Israelites were slaves there. The ancient Egyptians believed the Nile River was a god and a source of life. Imagine how they must have felt when God told Moses to turn the Nile River water to blood. What was God doing? Come this Sunday and find out as Pastor Aaron unpacks Exodus 7:14-24 beyond what you studied at home and in your small group. See how this leads us to the Lord’s Supper as we believers partake together.

Have you ever felt under-resourced? More month than money when it comes to all your bills? Maybe the cause of your lack of resources is due to somebody else? Maybe a family member made a commitment that has cost you dearly and you are still paying for it? This seems to be the thinking of Israelites in slavery in our passage of Exodus 5 this week when their leader Moses tells Pharaoh to let God’s people go. Pharaoh was not going to let go of his slave work force so easily and instead demanded that the Israelites make bricks without straw and without lowering their daily quota, one brick. But this was God’s word! And sometimes God’s word makes things harder before they get easier, but that is not the last of God’s word. There is hope for those under-resourced. The God over everything will deliver us!

Have you ever been minding your own business and then God unexpectedly showed up? How did He get your attention? Moses was tending sheep when God spoke to Him from the burning bush and told Moses to go back to Egypt to tell Pharaoh to let God’s people go. This is what we will be studying from Exodus 3 this week. May we all be ready and expecting our next encounter with God!

Happy New Year! God was faithful in 2025, and He certainly will be this coming year! We have much to anticipate. We are beginning a new series through the Book of Exodus entitled Know-Grow-Go this Sunday! Our Leadership Team picked the Book of Exodus to remind us of the power of God in our lives. We are very excited to see what God is going to do in and through us as we gather together each week and look at this awesome book.

I hope you had a great Christmas, and your heart was full of joy and wonder at what our Saviour Jesus has done for us. This Sunday is becoming one of my annual favourites when we gather between Christmas and New Year for a time to share God stories. It is a powerful time remembering God’s faithfulness, power and love in our lives. I usually take time this week every year to review my year going over answered prayers, remembering the events that brought me joy and sorrow and knowing that God brought me through both of them. We overcome through the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11). So come out and spend time with your church family reminiscing about what our Heavenly Father has done for us.