Tag Archive - OTCC

Supersize me

April 20, 2009 in Other with 0 Comments

I’m teaching through the 10 Commandments at OTCC, and this weekend was the 2nd one – no carved images. You can listen to the audio here.

Anyway, although I got through the teaching on the commandment itself, there were a couple of things I didn’t have time to elaborate on, so I am going to do that in this post. Here is the passage in Exodus 20:4-6

You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me, and showing covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

The commandment is pretty straightforward – don’t downsize God by trying to represent him by making something that could never represent him. That draws our focus away from him and kicks him out of his rightful place at the center of our lives.

His reason is because he’s “a jealous God”. In our small group this afternoon, we discussed that God couldn’t be jealous if our worship didn’t belong to him in the first place. He could be envious of our devotion to someone or something else. But jealousy means that we are giving away something that is rightfully his – our worship.

With this in mind, God makes two statements about how he deals with his people. (Listen to the first message in this series to understand why these apply only to those people who already have a relationship with God.)

First, for “those who reject me,” God promised that he would deal “with [their] children to the third and fourth generations”. Now some take this to mean that God places generational curses on families from which they cannot be freed.

I take issue with that because God clearly spells out in Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18:19-24 that each person is responsible for his own sins. This principle is carried throughout the New Testament, as well, in passages like Romans 14:12 and 2 Corinthians 5:10.

Here he is referring specifically to those who “reject” (some translations say “hate”) him. This is an intentional defiant attitude against God and his love and law by an individual person. What happens in a family when the parents reject God? The children suffer. They are not taught and do not experience God’s law or his love. What happens when the children grow up and do the same in their families?

Do you see how the effects of sin and rebellion can be passed down from one generation to the next? Not because God has cursed the family, but because the family has turned away from God, and God has to “deal with” those succeeding generations of rebels. Sin’s consequences always affect more than just the sinner.

Secondly, for “those who love me and keep my commandments,” God promised “covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations.”

Again, this doesn’t mean that as long as I do what’s right, my descendants can do anything they want, and God has to accept it. We are each still responsible to God for our own lives.

However, just like a person’s sin can affect a family for several generations, and person’s faithfulness to God can affect a family for generations. And according to this passage and others (Jeremiah 32:29, for example), the effects of our faithfulness to God reaches down through time far beyond the effects of our sin!

To those who love and obey God, he has promised his unending faithfulness. Consider: if a generation is 25 years on average (from the time a person is born until his or her first child), “a thousand generations” is 25,000 years! In human time, that’s pretty much forever! God promised faithfulness that humanity will never see end.

We don’t ever have to worry about God upholding his end of the bargain. When we faithfully keep him at the center of our lives, we can be sure that he will be faithful to guide us, protect us, provide for us, and so much more.

Don’t forget to be at OTCC (Twitter: @oaktreechurch) next week as we continue “Rewriting the Ten Commandments” with number three – “Don’t steal my identity.”

Jonah 1 (Part 2)

April 8, 2009 in Other with 0 Comments

In his spiraling descent in chapter 1, Jonah’s next step down was using other people in his personal rebellion against God. Jonah had already started running from God. He left his homeland and God’s people. Then he hired outsiders to help him escape God by boat.

Yeah, because the best place to be when running from God is in the middle of the biggest body of water you can find with nowhere else to go! So God sent a huge wind to whip the sea into a violent storm.

Check out this exchange between the sailors and Jonah after their prayers did nothing and they figured out it was all Jonah’s fault:

They said to him, “Tell us, whose fault is it that this disaster has overtaken us? What’s your occupation? Where do you come from? What’s your country? And who are your people?” He said to them, “I am a Hebrew! And I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Hearing this, the men became even more afraid and said to him, “What have you done?” (The men said this because they knew that he was trying to escape from the Lord, because he had previously told them.)  Jonah 1:8-10

Um…he “told them” that “he was trying to escape from the Lord”? How did that conversation go?

Jonah: “Hey, I’m looking for passage outta here. Where you guys headed?”
Sailors: “Tarshish.”
Jonah: “Reeeally? Nice – 2,500 miles in the opposite direction from Nineveh! I’m there. And I’m kind of in a hurry – trying to ditch God actually. He’s coming after me.”
Sailors: “OK, then. Here’s your ticket. Why don’t you hide out below, and we’ll let you know when we get there.”
Jonah: “Perfect – thanks (and, if anyone asks, you haven’t seen me!)”

Not only did Jonah show disregard for God by disobeying and running away, but he dragged these guys into it and used them for his own selfish plan. He couldn’t have cared less about these people. They weren’t Jews, they worshiped false gods (Jonah 1:5), and it wouldn’t have mattered to him if they all died with him.

He wasn’t interested in being God’s prophet. He just wanted to preach good things to God’s people (see his message in 2 Kings 14:25). We are all too happy to serve God when it serves our own purposes, too. But when our neck is on the line – no way!

By dragging innocent outsiders into his rebellion against God, Jonah also put God’s name on the line. This was a man supposed to be helping people move toward God, not using them to run away from him!

But Jonah took it a step further. He actually asked them to assist in his suicide! “Pick me up and throw me into the sea.” Frankly, dying in the Mediterranean Sea had to be better than what the Assyrians would do to him. At least there was a chance he’d survive the elements and could be rescued by another ship.

In part 1 we saw that when we run from God, we end up running from his people, too – the very people who can help us. It’s also true that in running from God, we tend to use people – the very people we should be helping find God.

In doing so, we discredit God, his people, his love, his grace – everything that he offers – just for a short run from something we don’t want to do.

Have you used someone in the past in your rebellion against God? Do you need to correct that with them?

Are you running from God right now and using others to help? Come back to God and celebrate his grace and forgiveness this Easter weekend.

If you don’t have a home church, and you’re in north-central Indiana or southwest Michigan, I’d love to see you at OTCC this weekend. I am beginning a new 5-week teaching series on God’s 10 commandments. You won’t want to miss a single week. Who will you bring with you?

 

Posts in this series:

Jonah 1 (Part 1)

April 7, 2009 in Other with 0 Comments

Jonah’s story is not that different from mine and yours. No, I haven’t been eaten by a fish (though I still have pain from a fight with our dog once), and you haven’t either. But, really, that’s not the point of the story. Sure, we teach our kids about “Jonah and the Great Fish” (or “whale” from a mistranslation of Matthew 12:40), but that’s really such a small part of the story.

In chapter 1 we are introduced to the main character and find out some things about him and ourselves.

The Lord said to Jonah son of Amittai, “Go immediately to Nineveh, that large capital city, and announce judgment against its people because their wickedness has come to my attention.” Instead, Jonah immediately headed off to Tarshish to escape from the commission of the Lord. (Jonah 1:1-3)

To be honest, most of the time I wish that God would just speak up and talk to me like he did Jonah. In my mind, I would be eager to obey, not run. What was Jonah’s problem?

Well, first, he was probably scared out of his mind. The Assyrians were violent, nasty people. For hundreds of years they practiced a form of torture and execution called impalement. (If the picture doesn’t do it for you, click on it for detailed information about this horrific procedure. It will open in a new window.) He could imagine what would happen if he walked in and starting announcing their demise. And it wouldn’t be pretty.

Secondly, although he was probably more than willing to preach condemnation on the Assyrians, he knew too much. By his own admission (Jonah 4:2), he knew that there was a chance (however remote) that the Assyrians would repent because of his preaching. And he knew that if they repented God would forgive. And he knew that if God forgave them, he wouldn’t destroy them. And in his heart, Jonah could not bear the thought of them surviving after all they had done to the Israelite people.

So he ran. And he began to go down. I think of Jonah’s story as a downward spiraling staircase. Watch his descent as the story unfolds.

His first step down was to Joppa. Although it was in the region originally allotted to the Israelite tribe of Dan, the Danites never conquered that area, so it remained in control of the sea-faring Phoenicians (Joshua 19:40-48). In running from God he also ran from God’s people. He didn’t want any reminders of his directive.

One of the first mistakes people make today when running from God is leaving the church, too. We can’t look people in the eye. We can’t sing the songs. We can’t hear the preaching or teaching. The result is that in addition to missing out on God’s plan for us, we also completely disconnect ourselves from anything and anyone that could help us accomplish it.

You may be running from God right now. Maybe you’re scared of what might happen if you obey. Maybe you know too much, and you’re just not willing to go there because of what you know will happen.

If that’s your story, then you have a decision to make. You can either become a fugitive like Jonah – running from anything that reminds you of God – or you can stop running and come back to the only ones who can really help you.

This weekend churches across the world are celebrating Easter – God’s ultimate show of power and forgiveness. If you’ve been running, there is no more appropriate time to come back to him than on the anniversary of his love chasing after you.

If you don’t have a church where you feel comfortable attending, and you’re in the South Bend area, I’d invite you to worship with us at Oak Tree Community Church. It’s time to stop running.

 

We’ll finish chapter 1 in the next post.

Posts in this series:

Proverbs 23

February 27, 2009 in Proverbs with 0 Comments

It doesn’t look like I’m going to make it by the end of February (silly me trying to do it in a short month), but by early next week, I will have read straight through Proverbs for the first time in over a decade. So here we are in chapter 23.

Do not wear yourself out to become rich;be wise enough to restrain yourself. (23:4)

This is the same man who pounds on lazy people for not working hard enough. Now he says to not work too hard. There is a balance between working hard for your wages and being a “workaholic”.

Working some overtime short-term to save money quickly or to pay off a debt is a great idea. But working overtime forever is foolish, because it takes you away from what really matters – family and friends. And without those important relationships, the wealth you earn will be of little value.

My child, if your heart is wise, then my heart also will be glad; my soul will rejoice when your lips speak what is right. (23:15-16)

This is the prayer of every good dad. There is nothing that makes a man more proud than to see his son or daughter make the wise choice. That’s why we use the 252Basics curriculum in our OTCC Tree House Kids program. Our goal is to partner with our families so that the kids will grow up and make their parents – and their Heavenly Father – proud of them.

There’s nothing a kid likes to hear as much as, “Well done, good job!” And those are the words of a proud parent.

Winning friends and influencing people

February 4, 2009 in Other with 0 Comments

No, this isn’t a review of that classic book, or the title would have started with “Book Review”.

Actually, I was reading Proverbs 3 yesterday, and verses 3-4 caught my attention.

Do not let truth and mercy leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then you will find favor and good understanding,
in the sight of God and people.

In our Treehouse Kids program on Sunday mornings, we use a curriculum called 252Basics. According to their website, the program “is built around three Basic Truths every child should embrace according to what Jesus modeled in Luke 2:52.”

Now Luke 2:52 tells us that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and with people.”

Since our mission in Treehouse Kids is to help kids grow in Jesus Christ, who grew “in favor with God and with people”, we should probably know how to do that.

Which brings us back to Proverbs. How does a person – whether a child or adult – “find favor…in the sight of God and people”?

By holding fast to truth and mercy. By planting them deep into our hearts.

Jesus said that the truth sets people free (John 8:32). Micah told us that God’s desire for his people is “to do what is right, to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8, NLT).

That sounds a lot like the “three Basic Truths” that 252Basics is built on:

  • I need to make the wise choice.
  • I can trust God no matter what.
  • I should treat others the way I want to be treated.

 

So, how are you doing at winning friends and influencing people? Better yet, is your life one that finds favor with God and with people?

If not, which of those steps do you need to take today to start heading in that direction?

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