Week of 12/30-1/5: Foundations - God Gives the Rules

Day One: Exodus 34: 1-9 The LORD said to Moses, “Cut two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be prepared by morning. Come up Mount Sinai in the morning and stand before Me on the mountaintop. No one may go up with you; in fact, no one must be seen anywhere on the mountain. Even the flocks and herds are not to graze in front of that mountain.”

Finish the story by reading 4-9 in your Bible.

HAVE YOU EVER thought about seat belt laws? Today every state in the U.S. has some sort of legal requirements for wearing a seat belt when riding in a car. What is the point of these laws? Are they simply on the books so that police officers have an additional reason for pulling someone over and generating revenue? Or is there something else in play? Consider these statistics:

* Approximately 35,000 people die in motor vehicle crashes each year. About 50 percent (17,000) of these people could be saved if they wore their safety belts.

* For every 1 percent increase in safety belt use, 172 lives and close to $100 million in annual injury and death costs could be saved.

* Safety belts when used properly reduce the number of serious traffic injuries by 50 percent and fatalities by 60-70 percent.

* A common cause of death and injury to children in motor vehicles is being crushed by adults who are not wearing safety belts. One out of four serious injuries to passengers is caused by occupants being thrown into each other.

The point is, laws enforcing the use of seat belts are in place for the physical and financial well being of those both in the car and those who may be involved in an accident with the car. They weren’t created just so we’d have another rule to obey. They were created for our own good.

Interestingly, many people view God’s word in a similar light. They think it’s merely a book filled with do’s and don’ts to keep people in line. In reality, God’s word isn’t there to suppress our fun or take away our freedoms, it’s there to show us how to fulfill our ultimate purpose in life: glorifying the name of God. By obeying the commands of God, we are able to worship Him and bring glory to His holy name. In essence, God didn’t give His word for our oppression, but for our good and His glory!

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Why do “rules” usually have a negative connotation?

▷▷How are God’s “rules” different than man’s “rules”?

▷▷Why should we seek to obey God’s “rules”?

Week of 12/30-1/5: Foundations - God Gives the Rules

Day Two: Leviticus 19:1-2 The LORD spoke to Moses: “Speak to the entire Israelite community and tell them: Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

“YOU CAN NEVER see your own face, only a reflection, not the face itself.”

Think about these words by Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar from the Middle Ages. Have you ever considered that the only person’s face it is impossible for you to ever see is your own? Spend a few minutes right now and see how much of your face you can see. Maybe some of your nose, and if you make a fish face you can kind of see your lips. Other than that, you can’t see anything else. With that being the case, how can we ever be sure of how we really look?

We can be confident in how we look because we can see our reflections. That is precisely what we see every time we look into a mirror. We are not looking directly at our face, but at a reflection of our face.

Does seeing our reflection instead of seeing our actual face change anything? Absolutely not! Just because we can’t see our actual face with our own two eyes doesn’t mean we don’t know what we look like. We can trust the reflection to give us an accurate depiction of ourselves.

Think about this in the context of God’s holiness. Can we physically see the actual holiness of God? No, but that’s not to say that we can’t get an accurate understanding of it through His Word. Just as a mirror gives us an accurate reflection of our face, the Word of God gives us an accurate reflection of God’s holiness. As you continue through life studying the Scriptures, remember that they reflect all the characteristics of God. We may not see physical manifestations of them, but we can see their accurate reflections throughout all of the Bible.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷What’s the difference between seeing something and seeing a reflection of something?

▷▷Why can we accept the trustworthiness of reflections?

▷▷How does the Bible reflect various characteristics of God?

Week of 12/30-1/5: Foundations - God Gives the Rules

Day Three: Numbers 14:11-19 “So now, may My Lord’s power be magnified just as You have spoken: The LORD is slow to anger and rich in faithful love, forgiving wrongdoing and rebellion. But He will not leave [the guilty] unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children to the third and fourth generation. Please pardon the wrongdoing of this people in keeping with the greatness of Your faithful love, just as You have forgiven them from Egypt until now.”

For the full story, read verses 11-16 in your Bible.

B.I.B.L.E.—Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

Have you ever heard this acronym used to describe the Bible? What about referring to the Bible as man’s owner’s manual? Do you think that there are problems with these understandings of the Bible?

Imagine you just turned 16 and received the keys to your first car. As you inspect your new vehicle, you open the glove box and find the owner’s manual. What’s contained in the owner’s manual? All kinds of information about your car. You can find out what every light on your dashboard means, how much pressure should be in your tires, the correct way to tow the vehicle, and much, much more. The point is, the central focus of your car’s owner’s manual is your car.

If we follow this line of reasoning, and want to call the Bible our owner’s manual, then we miss the point of its entire message. The Bible is God’s revelation to man. It lets us know about Him, the world He created, and how people can have a relationship with Him. Notice that all of those things focus on HIM.

If we live our lives thinking that the Bible is about us, we miss its ultimate message. Yes, there are many instructions in God’s word that instruct us on how to live, how to have a relationship with God, and the beautiful sacrifice He made on our behalf. But, in spite of all of those truths that we get to latch onto and enjoy, the driving message of the work centers wholly on the living God.

We must be careful not to view the Bible merely as an instruction manual. We must see it as God’s revelation to us. When we see who God truly is, then we ought to act in a manner worthy of Him. That is, God’s word doesn’t give us a checklist to living a good life, it tells a story of a holy God and a perfect Redeemer that we are to love and follow.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷What potential dangers occur when the Bible is viewed as an owner’s manual or instruction book?

▷▷Why is it important to understand that the Bible focuses squarely on God?

▷▷How does an appropriate understanding of God’s character shape and motivate our lives?

Week 12/16-12/22: Foundation - God Comes To Rescue

Day One: Exodus 6:2-9 Then God spoke to Moses, telling him, “I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but I did not make My name Yahweh known to them. I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land they lived in as foreigners. Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered My covenant. “Therefore tell the Israelites: I am Yahweh, and I will deliver you from the forced labor of the Egyptians and free you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am Yahweh your God, who delivered you from the forced labor of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.” Moses told this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and hard labor.

ON OCTOBER 13, 2010, millions of people around the world were glued to their TVs as an incredible rescue operation was taking place before their eyes. Sixty-nine days prior, 33 men went to work as usual in a copper and gold mine in Copiapo, Chile. To their horror, the mine caved in, trapping all 33 people over 2,000 feet underground.

After initially fearing the w

orst, a sign of hope arose 17 days after the collapse as the miners were able to attach a note to a drill searching for them with the following message: “The 33 of us in the shelter are well.” The rescue that ensued took place live before a worldwide television audience. Incredibly, all 33 men were not only alive, but none of them sustained serious injury.

Imagine that you were one of those miners, trapped deep beneath the surface of the earth. There is absolutely nothing you can do to rescue yourself. Left to your own accord, you would sit in the belly of the earth until your physical resources ran dry. Your only hope would be that someone would do something incredible to rescue you from a situation in which you cannot rescue yourself.

While the Chilean miners experienced this in the physical realm, we all experience this same dire situation in the spiritual realm. We are all born into slavery of sin (John 8:34). There is nothing we can do on our own to escape this slavery. Fortunately, we have a personal and loving God at work on a rescue plan of eternal proportions.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷What does it mean to be a slave to sin?

▷▷Why couldn’t the miners save themselves? Why can’t you rescue yourself from slavery to sin?

▷▷How can you be rescued from slavery to sin?

Week of 12/16-12-22: Foundation - God Comes To Rescue

Day Two: Exodus 12:11-13 Here is how you must eat it: dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the LORD’s Passover. “I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn [male] in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. I am the LORD; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy [you] when I strike the land of Egypt.

For the full story, read verses 5-10 in your Bible.

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, my grandparents seemed to always have new kittens coming and going from their back yard. One of my favorite games to play with the young cats was named “The Claw.” The game was simple: quietly approach unsuspecting kitten with my hand slightly spread and fingers bent into the shape of a claw. While the cats always seemed to enjoy the game, I would inevitably come home with scratches all up and down my arms from where the cats had gotten “The Claw.” This led to the following interaction with my mother:

Mom: “What happened to your arm!?!”

Me: “One of the kittens scratched it.”

Mom: “Were you aggravating it?”

Me: “Of course not! I was just playing ‘The Claw.’ ”

Mom: “Well, then, I don’t feel sorry for you. You got what you deserved.”

Notice that last phrase: “You got what you deserved.” Have you ever been told that in the midst of a pain or trouble? Have you ever thought that about someone else’s misfortunes? Better yet, have you ever considered what we truly deserve in light of our continued sin?

Scripture is clear that the only thing we as sinners deserve is death (Rom. 1:32). Fortunately, just as God delivered Israel from the punishment they deserved here in Exodus, God delivers those who trust in Him from the punishment they deserve through the blood of Christ (Rom. 5:8)!

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷What does it mean to “get what you deserve”?

▷▷What is that we all truly deserve?

▷▷How are we rescued from what we truly deserve?

Week of 12/16-12/22: Foundation - God Comes To Rescue

Day Three: Exodus 14:10-14 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and saw the Egyptians coming after them. Then the Israelites were terrified and cried out to the LORD for help. They said to Moses: “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Isn’t this what we told you in Egypt: Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” But Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the LORD’s salvation He will provide for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you must be quiet.”

DO YOU HAVE AN IPHONE? An iPad? An iPod? Did you know that Apple invests office space, man hours, and tons of production dollars into the way their products are packaged? Appleinsider.com, a website that specializes in news on Apple products, revealed a little bit about this packaging process when highlighting a book entitled “Inside Apple” by Adam Lashinsky.

“How a customer opens a box must be one of the last things a typical product designer would consider,” Lashinsky wrote. “Yet for Apple, the inexpensive box merits as much attention as the high-margin electronic device inside.”

He goes on to note that showing attention to detail at even the smallest level communicates to customers that “the manufacturer cares about them.” Customers then feel a bond with the company, something that transcends price points.

So why does a company like Apple devote so many resources to something that is destined to wind up in a garbage can? Because even that experience brings honor and recognition to the Apple brand. Apple orchestrates everything to glorify their name.

If a company will go to those lengths to gain notoriety, think of what an all-good, all-powerful, holy, and wonderful God would do to bring glory to His name! God designed and created the world for His glory, and providentially works through people in this world for His glory. He places us in the communities we are in in order that His name may be glorified!

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Does it seem wasteful to spend so much time on a box?

▷▷What does it mean to “glorify God”?

▷▷Why is God’s glory so important?

▷▷How are you being used and shaped for the glory of God?

Week of 12/9-12/15: Foundation - The Covenant

Day One: Gen. 12:1-4 The LORD said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran.

THE AVERAGE TEENAGER has 265 friends on Facebook. For each and every one of those Facebook friendships, one person had to send a friend request, and the other had to accept the friend request.

Simply knowing about someone does not make you Facebook friends. The only way you can become friends with someone on Facebook is if one of you take the lead and send a friend request. Then, the friendship is confirmed only when the other party accepts that request. Notice the process. One person initiates the request, and the other person accepts the request. Until both of those elements are present, there is no friendship.

This process is true when cultivating a relationship with God as well. The key difference lies in the initiating phase. When it comes to having a relationship with the creator of the universe, He is always the one in pursuit. He is the one that extends the request, and we are the ones who are then required to either accept and embrace that relationship, or to simply ignore His request.

God desires and initiates relationships with His creation. When He pursues us, we must be willing to follow Abram’s example and do as the Lord tells us, for the sake of His glory!

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Why is it important to understand that God initiates relationships with people?

▷▷How does this truth impact our understanding of God’s character?

▷▷How should we respond to God’s pursuit?

Week of 12/9-12/15: Foundation - The Covenant

Day Two: Gen 15:1-6 After these events, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great. But Abram said, “Lord GOD, what can You give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Abram continued, “Look, You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir.” Now the word of the LORD came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then He said to him, “Your offspring will be that [numerous].” Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness.

IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT and you and a few friends decide to head to a local restaurant to eat. After being seated, a waiter comes by the table to take food and drink orders. Each of you order something different, and wait with anticipation as the server heads to the back to deliver your order to the kitchen.

Think about this process for a minute. You walk into a restaurant and are complete strangers to everyone working there. They let you order anything you want off of the menu, and never once make you open your wallet and verify that you can pay for items you order. The cooks immediately start to prepare your food based on nothing but an implicit promise that once you finish your meal, you will pay for your food.

Why does a restaurant do this? Why do they let you order anything on the mere promise to pay? They do this because they have seen time after time after time that when someone orders food, they stand by their word and pay for their meal. In reality, the food industry’s entire business model is built upon trusting costumers to pay for the food they order.

If a huge industry can be built upon trusting the promises of sinful men and women, why do we have such a hard time trusting the promises of God? Genesis 15 tells us about just one of the hundreds of promises that God makes to His people throughout the Bible. And in every single instance, God kept His promise. For us to truly be changed by the Gospel, we must be willing to fully trust in the promises of God.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷What are some of the promises of God?

▷▷Why is it sometimes more difficult to trust in the promises of God than the promises of man? Which has failed you more often?

▷▷What in your life needs to change to display that you do trust His promises?

Week of 12/9-12/15: Foundation - The Covenant

Day Three: Gen. 17:1-14 When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him, saying, “I am God Almighty. Live in My presence and be devout. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell to the ground, and God spoke with him: “As for Me, My covenant is with you, and you will become the father of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but your name will be Abraham, for I will make you the father of many nations. I will make you extremely fruitful and will make nations and kings come from you. I will keep My covenant between Me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant to be your God and the [God] of your offspring after you.

Finish the story by reading 8-14 in your Bible.

“ACT LIKE YOU’VE BEEN THERE BEFORE!”

That phrase was constantly pounded into the players’ heads by the coaches of my high school football team. The idea behind the phrase is that when someone scores a touchdown, that player simply hands the football back to the official and immediately lines up for the extra point. The alternative, which is often seen, is a grand touchdown celebration, which includes any of the following: spiking the ball, jumping into the arms of teammates, dancing, etc.

The idea behind this mantra is that if you are used to scoring touchdowns, then it shouldn’t be a grand spectacle. If the player “acts like he’s been there before,” he is going to have a very different attitude than the majority of the players who step into the end zone.

The continuous preaching of the concept set our team apart from those that we played. We had an ongoing reputation of being a very good football program that always had a level of respect and class that other teams didn’t posses. If you were going to be a contributing member of our team, you had to be set apart from the attitudes and actions of a typical football program.

Being a follower of Christ takes a bigger, more radical commitment than this. In this passage we see God tell Abram to “live in (His) presence and be devout.” That means we are to be set apart from the world for the sake of God’s glory. Our lives should not look like the world, but should radiate the glory of God!

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Why does God desire us to be different from the world?

▷▷What motivates us to live different than the world?

▷▷How do we ensure that we live different than the world?

Week of 12/2-12/8: Foundation - Paradise Lost

Day One: Gen. 3:1-7 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

I REMEMBER THE PLOT of the first horror movie I ever saw. The story centered upon a boy who was picked on by everyone in his life, including his mother, neighborhood friends and school mates. One day these “friends” pushed him down a well, nearly killing the boy in the process. The next 20 years of this young man’s life were spent in a coma. When he finally awoke, he went on a “revenge spree.” Having never recovered full body functions, he had a distinctive walk and a forever deformed face. You knew this was a bad dude when he was chasing after you. To this day I still look over my shoulder when the lights are off in a room.

Rewind to the Garden of Eden. There’s an enemy that appears in the garden as well, but he isn’t nearly as recognizable as the bad guy in the movie. This enemy is much more subtle. But don’t let subtleness fool you. He is the most dangerous enemy there is. He doesn’t limp around like a zombie or carry a big knife. Rather, his weapon of choice is a question. This may not sound very frightening, but trust me, it is!

The enemy approached Eve and posed a deadly question: “Did God really say...?” With this simple question he was able to get Adam and Eve to doubt God. This question pierced so deeply that for the first time; man rebelled and sinned against God.

Today that same enemy comes after us, not dressed in masks or carrying weapons, but just as dangerous. He always whispers the same question, “Did God really say…?” Don’t let the enemy get you to question what God clearly says in His Word!

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷How did the enemy tempt Adam and Eve?

▷▷How does the enemy tempt us?

▷▷What can we do to overcome the temptations of the enemy?

Week of 12/2-12/8: Foundation - Paradise Lost

Day Two: Gen. 6:11-14, 17-18 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and the earth was filled with wickedness. God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth. Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth. “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and outside. ... Understand that I am bringing a flood – floodwaters on the earth to destroy every creature under heaven with the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will die. But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark with your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives.

ONE DAY I WAS EATING BREAKFAST with a couple that was interested in being on our core team of our church plant. I was excited to sit down with them because I thought they had a lot to offer the team. As we talked over breakfast at Cracker Barrel I got to hear the husband’s story. I knew he had a jail stint in his past, but I didn’t know any of the details. I expected to hear about some petty crime, and in my head I even thought about how cool it would be to have someone who served time is on our team!

As he continued to talk, I learned that he had spent more than 25 years locked up in a high security facility. I was shocked. And worse than that, I even lost my appetite, which almost impossible to do at Cracker Barrel. In my head I began thinking about the various crimes one could commit to receive such a severe sentence. I knew that the act had to have been very serious to get such a long sentence. As it turned out, the crime was severe. But God completely redeemed this man and uses him to this day to be a solid leader on mission for Jesus!

I knew this man’s crime had to be bad based on the extreme sentence he received. In Genesis 6 we read about God sentencing the people on earth for a crime. Judging from the sentence, which consisted of a worldwide flood, it is safe to assume that the offenses were severe.

What was the crime? The crime was filling the earth with wickedness and sin instead of filling the earth with the image of God. The Flood story ought to heighten our understanding of how bad sin is and remind us of the extreme penalty that we deserve.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Why did God send the flood?

▷▷What happened to earth as a result of the flood?

▷▷What does the flood teach us about sin?

Week of 12/2-12/8: Foundation - Paradise Lost

Day Three: Genesis 11:1-7 At one time the whole earth had the same language and vocabulary. As people migrated from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let us make oven-fired bricks.” They had brick for stone and asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth. “Then the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the men were building. he Lord said, “If, as one people all having the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

THERE HAVE BEEN MANY OCCASIONS where I hear my kids screaming for me from the playroom downstairs. “Come look! Come look!” they say with such excitement that I can’t help but think, “This is going to be good!” My expectations are usually met with a sloppy, crooked, Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa, Lego house. I can’t say what I am really thinking, so with as much enthusiasm as I can muster up, I exclaim, “Isn’t that…something?!” What did I expect? These are kids, not architects, engineers, or builders.

In Genesis 11 we read about a story where God’s creation tried something similar. Man decided to build a tower to try to get to heaven and to make a name for themselves. Unfortunately for man, there were a couple of problems with this plan.

First, God clearly let humanity know that their job was to make His name known. Here we see them trying to make a name for themselves. The problem with that endeavor is it goes completely against God’s desire and intentions for man.

Second, it consisted of mere humans trying to do a divine work (build a tower to heaven). They were trying to be god of their own lives. Though we may try to make a name for ourselves or try to be god over own our lives, in the end, we are unable to do anything great on our own.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Why did God disapprove of man building the tower?

▷▷What does this teach us about God?

▷▷What does this teach us about man?