The Bulls of Bashan

In one paragraph

Brian opened Easter Sunday by walking the congregation through Psalm 22, a song David wrote a thousand years before Jesus was born, and showing how its imagery of being surrounded by fierce bulls maps onto what Jesus faced on the cross. The sermon moved from ancient geography and scripture to a direct invitation for people to stop fighting their own "bulls of Bashan" alone and receive the life...

Read together

1. Psalm 22:1-24 read aloud in full as the main text of the sermon
2. Deuteronomy 3:1-11 cited for the story of King Og of Bashan and the race of giants
3. Colossians 2:14 quoted to show Jesus cancelled the record of charges against us by nailing it to the cross
4. 1 Corinthians 15:55-57 quoted on death being swallowed up in victory through Jesus Christ
5. Romans 9:9-10 quoted as the invitation to confess Jesus as Lord and be saved
6. Matthew 10 cited for Jesus acknowledging publicly those who acknowledge him on earth

Talk about it

1. David wrote Psalm 22 a thousand years before Jesus was born, and Brian pointed out that the bulls of Bashan carried a specific meaning for readers of that time, connecting to a place and a history they would have recognized immediately. Is there a place or image in your own life that carries that kind of weight, where just naming it brings a whole set of feelings or memories with it?
2. Brian described the cross not as a defeat but as a trap, where what looked like the enemy's greatest triumph turned out to be their undoing. Have you ever looked back on something that felt like a total loss and later seen it differently? What changed your perspective?
3. Brian walked through a long list of the kinds of bulls people face today, financial pressure, loneliness, grief, addiction, and sin among them. Which of those landed closest to home for you, and what does it feel like to hear that Jesus went through something that lets him identify with that specific pressure?
4. Brian said that in order to receive Jesus's victory, something has to die, pride, rebellion, the pain we hold onto. What is the hardest thing for you personally to lay down, and what do you think holds you back from doing it?
5. Brian shared the moment from his own life when, as a sophomore in high school, he stopped pretending the bulls were not there and finally said he was tired of fighting them on his own. Is there something right now that you have been managing, hiding, or minimizing that you have not yet brought honestly before God?