Week Five: New Commands & a New Covenant

“Okay, let’s go over the rules.”

The words of my school principal are still fresh as I think back to the first day of my 7^th grade year at Hixson Junior High.  That’s what you do on the first day.  You go over the rules.  “We don’t want anybody to misunderstand,” he would reason.  “Everybody needs to know what we expect.”  

Of course it was a thrilling exercise… an exercise repeated again my 8^th grade year and again my 9^th grade year.  For what seemed like an eternity he would read the student handbook to us, verbatim, line by line, with his glasses fixed firmly to the end of his nose.  It was excruciating.  Yet it was the same year after year.  After that I went into high school and don’t remember.  I probably stopped listening.  Or stopped caring.

That’s how a lot of people view the Christian life… having to listen to and then follow a bunch of rules.  Nobody likes rules.  You remember what your best friend said in high school (or was it just mine?)  “C'mon, Jimmy, rules were meant to be broken!”  That’s how a lot of us feel about rules and why some people are so turned off by the Bible and particularly the large section of it we call LAW.  It just reeks of “thou shalt nots.”  Who wants to give their lives to a system of rules that just take the joy out of life?  Nobody does.

Ahhh… but here is where we misunderstand the Law… the Bible and the whole story of God himself!  This week we enter into chapter five of “The Story” and are reading in that section of Scripture called the Law.  We will read of Moses, recently the people’s deliverer, summoned up to the mountain of the LORD to receive the famous Ten Commandments.  We will read of the laws given in fire and thunder then carved into the tablets of stone by God’s own hand.  And we will read of the people’s quick return to idolatry during Moses’ extended absence on the mountain.  But what are we to make of the Law?  Much is still debated on the role of the Ten Commandments in our day.  Are we to get all bent out of shape when such laws are posted in the public square?  Is it a violation of church and state?  What significance do they have for us, anyway, 3,500+ years on?  

As you read through the Law this week, I want to encourage you to look for things in the Law:

Look at the kind of people God calls Israel to be.

Look at the extent to which the people will have to go in order to atone for their sin and what it will cost them.

Look for the way in which God is going to “dwell” with His people once more.

And look for the way in which these laws are going to prepare the way for Jesus.

As we discover those four things, we will begin to see a bit more clearly just what God was 'up to' in his 'upper story' to bring his fallen creation back unto himself.

It’s Easter Sunday this week.  As we remember the empty tomb, let us not forget the story that brought us there

Week Four: Deliverance (a.k.a. “The Reluctant Swashbuckler”)

 In all the stories in the Bible, there is no more daring and adventurous a hero as Moses!  No one can forget the classic portrayal by Charlton Heston in the movie that reruns every year on tv around this time… “The Ten Commandments.”  He has most recently been played on the screen by Christian Bale, best known as Batman in the Dark Knight series.  I have to admit to being a little giddy when his casting was announced.  I imagined him uttering Heston’s famous line in his signature “Batman” voice… “Let my people go.”  Alas, I was disappointed.  But I digress…

As we come to chapter four of “The Story” and move into the opening chapters of Exodus we immediately realize that the situation we left at the end of Genesis has changed quite a bit.  Its one of those “we’re not in Kansas, anymore, Toto” moments as the Scriptures reveal to us that a new Pharaoh has arisen in Egypt- one who careth not about Joseph… or his descendants.  In fact for most of the 400 years they have lived in Egypt since the time of Jacob, Joseph and his brothers, they have been slaves… forced to work tirelessly for their relentless Egyptian masters. 

Never fear!  God has heard their cries of despair and has been preparing a young man to deliver them from their oppression.  As always with God, it all happens in His timing, however.  Moses is born during a particularly harsh time for Hebrew boys.  The Pharaoh, fearful that the Hebrews will outnumber and eventually overpower those in control, has ordered the infanticide of infant boys.  Moses’ mother saves him only by giving him up.  Left in the Nile River, Moses is found and subsequently adopted into the home of the Pharaoh’s daughter.  He grows up in the household of Pharaoh, no doubt being exposed to all of the finer things in life.  The best education.  The finest foods.  The fastest camels.  His life is destined for luxury at least.  Yet it takes a turn when he –in a fit of anger- picks a fight with an Egyptian slave-master who is mercilessly beating a Hebrew slave.  The man ends up dead and Moses hides the body to avoid suspicion.  Obviously, Moses is aware of his identity as a Hebrew by this time and has in mind that he is going to free them.  (cf. Acts 7:25)  This does not happen.  Instead Moses is driven from Egypt into Midian where he will spend the next 40 years tending sheep for a man who becomes his father-in-law.  I love his name: Jethro.    

God’s plan springs into action when He appears to Moses from within a burning bush… and some would say the rest is history.  What strikes me is the reluctance with which God’s call on Moses’ life is met.  When God calls Moses, in contrast to Abram’s reaction back in chapter two of “The Story”, Moses refuses.  “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he says to God.  In fact, he goes on and argues with God!  He gives God every excuse in the book as to why he should NOT be the one to go down and face the new Pharaoh demanding the release of his people.  He gives a pretty convincing argument, too.  I wouldn’t hire the guy.  But God never picks the wrong guy… and when you’ve been picked by God you better believe that God is going to get his way!  We haven’t read the story of Jonah yet, but he should’ve read about Moses before he did what he did!  That’s what I think anyway. 

Why do you suppose Moses struggled with the call of God on his life?  Why didn’t he want to go?  Do you think he was afraid?  Was he tired? (he was 80 afterall!)  What about you?  What has God asked you to do?  Have you accepted or are you still arguing back-and-forth with Him?  Why or why not?

Chapter Three... "Favorite Son"

I read this week about a girl named Jennifer.  She had attended church where Randy Frazee, the editor of "The Story" was preaching at the time.  She had come up in a rough family situation.  Single mom.  Drug-addict brother.  She was bound and determined to "make it" in life. but the cards seemed stacked against her.  But she was a "dreamer."

She dreamed of going to college and becoming a nurse.  She imagined herself helping people, especially people who were hurting.  She had a sharp mind and a tender heart and she wanted to learn the skills necessary to help hurting people when they needed it most.  Her family was unable to carry the financial burden of college, however so Jennifer was pretty much on her own with her dreams.  After high school she was accepted into college - one with a strong nursing program- but she didn't have the money to pay her tuition.  She didn't give up.  Deferring her dream a little while, she took a job and began saving every penny, hoping one day to have enough.  Week by week, dollar by dollar, Frazee tells, she saved her money in a special box that she hid in her bedroom.

Meanwhile, her brother had some run-ins with police.  He had begun stealing things and had gotten into some trouble in school.  Jennifer loved her brother and helped him in every way she could.  One week, she went to deposit her paycheck into her savings box and when she opened it, she discovered all but $20 was missing!  Her own brother had stolen from her to support his habit.  Her dream was shattered... and she felt betrayed.

Personal betrayal cuts to the core.  Many of us have experienced it... some by a family member or a close friend.  Those hurt the worst.  In our story this week, Joseph experienced betrayal by his own brothers.  Not just a little one either.  His brothers conspire against him, sell him to traveling gypsies, and lie to their father about his whereabouts.  They tell their father, Jacob, that his favorite son Joseph is dead.  He isn't of course.  He is enslaved in Egypt and spends the next 22 years struggling with one injustice after another.  At the end, however, God has blessed him and placed him in a position second only to the Pharaoh in Egypt!  It's a remarkable rise to power and is attributable solely to the creator of the universe divinely blessing Joseph.

When his brothers journey to Egypt seeking relief from the famine and realize that it is their punk little brother running the country, they are aghast!  And yet by the end of the "chapter" Joseph has demonstrated such amazing forgiveness.  How could Joseph have such a view of things?  This Sunday we will discuss what it was that enabled Joseph to forgive his brothers and reunite with them.  How can we deal so well with the difficulties life throws our way?

Jennifer?  Her story ends well.  One Sunday in worship she made the decision to let it go and to forgive her brother.  She dropped her last remaining $20 in the collection plate and wrote a note to the preacher telling him of her decision.  When he tracked her down he asked for permission to tell her story, which he did the following Sunday.  After services a couple along with a few others approached him and committed to paying for Jennifer to attend school... not just one semester... but all of it!  Today she is an oncology nurse, a devoted wife and a loving mother.  God does have a way of working things out.

"And we know that in all things God works together for the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose."  -Romans 8:28

--Jim

(story told by Randy Frazee, The Heart of the Story.  Chapter 3- "I Dreamed a Dream.")

Week Two: God Builds a Nation

I can already tell that I'm going to be pulling my hair out for the next 31 weeks!  (What's left of it anyway.)  I've been reading through chapter two this week and I'm really struggling to figure out how to approach preaching it on Sunday.  There is so much here!  Chapter two picks up with the call of Abram.  A few years ago I did an 8 week series through the life of Abraham.  In 2013 I did another 6 week series through the patriarchs, "Founding Fathers."  I am faced this week with how to compound what took me fourteen weeks to preach previously into one knock 'em out sermon.  Can it be done?  I doubt it.

Here's some of the many ways I could go with this... see what you think:

• The call of Abram... how God tapped an unlikely elderly couple living in the middle of ancient Mesopotamia to play the most vital role in human history, save perhaps Adam & Eve, up to that point.
• The faith of Abram... how God obeyed and went when God told him to go, even though God would not tell him where he would be going!
• How God made an unbelievable promise to this elderly couple, who also had happened to be barren all of their life... that they would have a child in their old age.  Sarai laughed and is it any wonder?  Wouldn't you?
• How Abraham & Lot had to part ways at one point, but then Lot got himself into a fair amount of trouble and Abraham had to come to the rescue.  This is the one "Action & Adventure" part of the story that is fairly exciting to me!
• I am intrigued that God allowed Abraham to plead with Him over the cities of Sodom & Gomorrah... two places which had become "hell on earth" in their debauchery and sin.  "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."
• I bask in the fulfillment of promise as Isaac indeed is born and becomes heir to the riches of God... yet am left scratching my head in disbelief at the request made of Abraham to take his boy to Mount Moriah and there sacrifice Him.  The Lord provides.  Thank you Lord that Abraham learned this most important lesson and was faithful.
• The love story of Isaac and Rebekah intrigues me... but not more so than the love story of Jacob & Rachel.... and Leah.  Two women... sure does seem like an awful dirty trick (Laban!)  
• God's nation begins to take shape as Jacob becomes the father of not one, not two, not three... but TWELVE bouncing baby boys... boys who would grow up and become the fathers or the patriarchs of the twelve tribes.
• and I am particularly struck by Jacob... by his tumultuous childhood, his deceptive nature, his reunion with an estranged brother and by his honest wrestling with God.  Don't we all wrestle with God?

Well... where would you go on Sunday?  As you read through chapter two this week ask yourself two questions:  (1) What is God 'up to' here?  What is he doing?  and (2)  What is He calling ME to do in response?

See you Sunday.  Have a blessed rest of the week.

Jim

Week One: The Beginning of Life as We Know It

Chapter One of "The Story"-  (Genesis 1-9)

Have you ever been to the movies and walked in just after it’s already started?  Maybe you were out in the lobby getting popcorn and you came in a few minutes late… then spent the next two hours trying to figure out what is happening?  You’re completely lost because you missed the beginning?  Chapter one of “The Story” acts as a cornerstone foundation for the entire rest of the Bible.  Don’t miss it or you’ll be lost for the next 32 weeks!

You might say the story begins with a “Bang”… but don’t misunderstand, it’s no accident the creation of the cosmos depicted in Genesis ch. 1.  It’s all the purposeful and intentional act of God creating the heavens and the earth… and all that is within it… the cosmos in all of its vast array.  What a magnificent creation it is!  Gen. 1 reads like a beautiful work of poetry as it eloquently describes each of the seven days of creation.  The light and the darkness.  The waters and the sky.  The stars and the earth.  God’s masterful artistry was on full display.  And at the end of each day God sits back and writes in his journal, “It is good.”

But it isn’t great.  As beautiful and magnificent as the creation was… that wasn’t the end of God’s work.  In fact, it wasn’t even the point of it all.  On the sixth day God had one more thing to create.  One more masterpiece.  And it would be crown jewel of it all! 

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  (Gen. 1:26 NIV)

Join us Sunday!