This morning, we have the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Tim Green.

Tonight, we have the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Tim Green.

God's Beloved Children

Hosea 11:1-9

Hosea 1:2 When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, he said this to him:

Go and marry a woman of promiscuity,and have children of promiscuity,for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuityby abandoning the Lord.

Hosea is the story of God's faithful love in spite of Israel's desire for other gods (promiscuity). 

Jezreel- son #1, vs. 1:4

Lo-ruhamah- daughter #1, vs. 1:6

Lo-ammi- son #2, vs. 1:8

Jezreel- "Valley of Massacre"

Lo-ruhamah- "No compassion" or "Not beloved"

Lo-ammi- "Not my people"

"I will put an end to the house of Israel."

"The Lord will no longer have compassion on Israel."

"For you are not my people, and I am not your God."

Hosea 11:1-4

1 When Israel was a child, I loved him,and out of Egypt I called my son.

2 Israel called to the Egyptianseven as Israel was leaving them.They kept sacrificing to the Baalsand burning offerings to idols.

3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,taking them by the hand,but they never knew that I healed them.

4 I led them with human cords,with ropes of love.To them I was like onewho eases the yoke from their jaws;

I bent down to give them food.

Hosea 11:5-7

5 Israel will not return to the land of Egyptand Assyria will be his king,because they refused to repent.

6 A sword will whirl through his cities;it will destroy and devour the bars of his gates,because of their schemes.

7 My people are bent on turning from me.Though they call to him on high,he will not exalt them at all.

Hosea 11:8-11

8 How can I give you up, Ephraim?

How can I surrender you, Israel?

How can I make you like Admah?

How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

I have had a change of heart;

my compassion is stirred!

9 I will not vent the full fury of my anger;

I will not turn back to destroy Ephraim.

For I am God and not man,

the Holy One among you;

I will not come in rage.

10 They will follow the Lord;

he will roar like a lion.

When he roars,

his children will come trembling from the west.

11 They will be roused like birds from Egypt

and like doves from the land of Assyria.

Then I will settle them in their homes.

This is the Lord’s declaration.

The story of Hosea 11 is the story of a parent who refuses to give up on their children.

God has chosen a people and loved these people. No sinfulness, no idol worship, no stubborness to repent, can overcome the love of a God who desires to pull you into Himself as a parent holds a child.

Jezreel- God sows/Valley of Massacre

Lo-ruhamah- No compassion/Not beloved

Lo-ammi- Not my people

Hosea 2:19-23

19 I will take you to be my wife forever.I will take you to be my wife in righteousness,justice, love, and compassion.

20 I will take you to be my wife in faithfulness,and you will know the Lord.

21 On that day I will respond—this is the Lord’s declaration.I will respond to the sky,and it will respond to the earth.

22 The earth will respond to the grain,the new wine, and the fresh oil,and they will respond to Jezreel.

23 I will sow her in the land for myself,and I will have compassionon Lo-ruhamah;I will say to Lo-ammi:You are my people,and he will say, “You are my God.”

Jezreel- God sows

Ruhamah- I have compassion, My beloved

Ammi- You are my people

We believe a child is a part of our community when he or she is prayed for.

My job is for ______________ to know they have a new name.

1. We pray for our children.

2. We live as people of character.

3. We remember that the Kingdom looks to children as the example of faith.

We must slow down and recover the delight of a child. Delight is peace.

Today we are joined by our youth pastor, Rev. James Dolinger.

Notes and Scripture:

• Provision

• Protection

• Power

Anytime I look outside of God for provision, protection, and power; I have made that an idol.

What do I place between God and myself?

1 Kings 11:43 Solomon rested with his ancestors and was buried in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam became king in his place.

1 Kings 12:1-17

12 Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king. 2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard about it, he stayed in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon’s presence. Jeroboam stayed in Egypt. 3 But they summoned him, and Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam: 4 “Your father made our yoke harsh. You, therefore, lighten your father’s harsh service and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

5 Rehoboam replied, “Go away for three days and then return to me.” So the people left. 6 Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon when he was alive, asking, “How do you advise me to respond to this people?”

7 They replied, “Today if you will be a servant to this people and serve them, and if you respond to them by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever.”

8 But he rejected the advice of the elders who had advised him and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and attended him. 9 He asked them, “What message do you advise that we send back to this people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

10 The young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to this people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!’ This is what you should tell them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist! 11 Although my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with barbed whips.’”

12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had ordered: “Return to me on the third day.” 13 Then the king answered the people harshly. He rejected the advice the elders had given him 14 and spoke to them according to the young men’s advice: “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with barbed whips.”

15 The king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events came from the Lord to carry out his word, which the Lord had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat. 16 When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered him:

What portion do we have in David?We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.Israel, return to your tents;David, now look after your own house!

So Israel went to their tents, 17 but Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites living in the cities of Judah.

1 Kings 12:25-30

25 Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built Penuel. 26 Jeroboam said to himself, “The kingdom might now return to the house of David. 27 If these people regularly go to offer sacrifices in the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, the heart of these people will return to their lord, King Rehoboam of Judah. They will kill me and go back to the king of Judah.” 28 So the king sought advice.

Then he made two golden calves, and he said to the people, “Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here are your gods who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” 29 He set up one in Bethel, and put the other in Dan. 30 This led to sin; the people walked in procession before one of the calves all the way to Dan.

Both of these stories show us the inappropriate use of provision, protection, and power. 

Luke 22:14-34

Power in the Kingdom of God is countercultural service rather than domination, with Jesus as the pattern (or the incarnation of service).

Scripture and Notes:

1 Samuel 8:4-9

1 Samuel 8:19-20

2 Samuel 5:1-5

2 Samuel 6:1-19

6 David again assembled all the fit young men in Israel: thirty thousand. 2 He and all his troops set out to bring the ark of God from Baale-judah. The ark bears the Name, the name of the Lord of Armies who is enthroned between the cherubim. 3 They set the ark of God on a new cart and transported it from Abinadab’s house, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the cart 4 and brought it with the ark of God from Abinadab’s house on the hill. Ahio walked in front of the ark. 5 David and the whole house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all kinds of fir wood instruments, lyres, harps, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals.

6 When they came to Nacon’s threshing floor, Uzzah reached out to the ark of God and took hold of it because the oxen had stumbled. 7 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and God struck him dead on the spot for his irreverence, and he died there next to the ark of God. 8 David was angry because of the Lord’s outburst against Uzzah, so he named that place Outburst Against Uzzah, as it is today. 9 David feared the Lord that day and said, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” 10 So he was not willing to bring the ark of the Lord to the city of David; instead, he diverted it to the house of Obed-edom of Gath. 11 The ark of the Lord remained in his house three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and his whole family.

12 It was reported to King David, “The Lord has blessed Obed-edom’s family and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God.” So David went and had the ark of God brought up from Obed-edom’s house to the city of David with rejoicing. 13 When those carrying the ark of the Lord advanced six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened calf. 14 David was dancing with all his might before the Lord wearing a linen ephod. 15 He and the whole house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of the ram’s horn. 16 As the ark of the Lord was entering the city of David, Saul’s daughter Michal looked down from the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.

17 They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent David had pitched for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings in the Lord’s presence. 18 When David had finished offering the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Armies. 19 Then he distributed a loaf of bread, a date cake, and a raisin cake to each one in the entire Israelite community, both men and women. Then all the people went home.

What does it mean to place God at the center of your life?

What does it mean to place God at the center of your ____________?

"...if the being of God breaks into our lives through ministry in the shape of the cross, then faith is much more than just an epistemological shift. Faith is the very transformation of our ontological condition."

The first step in putting God at the center of your life is to move from a knowledge of God to allowing God to transform your life (or very being).  

Stop trying to be perfect on your own strength–you can't.

Start by keeping God at the center and see how God works.

1 John 3:16-18

16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.

Do not underestimate the power of God.

The transformation that God wants to bring about in your life, cuts to the very core of who you are as a person.  

Bitterness to Gentleness

Ruth 1:1-17, 4:13-17

Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him.

Ruth 1:1-5

1 During the time of the judges, there was a famine in the land. A man left Bethlehem in Judah with his wife and two sons to stay in the territory of Moab for a while. 2 The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife’s name was Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the fields of Moab and settled there. 3 Naomi’s husband, Elimelech, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 Her sons took Moabite women as their wives: one was named Orpah and the second was named Ruth. After they lived in Moab about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and the woman was left without her two children and without her husband.

Ruth 1:6-17

6 She and her daughters-in-law set out to return from the territory of Moab, because she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to his people’s need by providing them food. 7 She left the place where she had been living, accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, and traveled along the road leading back to the land of Judah.

8 Naomi said to them, “Each of you go back to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to the dead and to me. 9 May the Lord grant each of you rest in the house of a new husband.” She kissed them, and they wept loudly.

10 They said to her, “We insist on returning with you to your people.”

11 But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Am I able to have any more sons who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons, 13 would you be willing to wait for them to grow up? Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying? No, my daughters, my life is much too bitter for you to share, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me.” 14 Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. 15 Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Follow your sister-in-law.”

16 But Ruth replied:

Don’t plead with me to abandon youor to return and not follow you.For wherever you go, I will go,and wherever you live, I will live;your people will be my people,and your God will be my God.

17 Where you die, I will die,and there I will be buried.May the Lord punish me,and do so severely,if anything but death separates you and me.

Where do we turn in our times of bitterness, barrenness, and brokenness?

The book of Ruth is a story of God's hesed (lovingkindness, steadfast love).

It is in the brokenness of life where we most easily see God's hesed.

Psalm 31:7 I will rejoice and be glad in your faithful love because you have seen my affliction. You know the troubles of my soul

Psalm 31:15-16

15 The course of my life is in your power; rescue me from the power of my enemies and from my persecutors.

16 Make your face shine on your servant; save me by your faithful love.

Ruth 4:13-17

13 Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. He slept with her, and the Lord granted conception to her, and she gave birth to a son. 14 The women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you without a family redeemer today. May his name become well known in Israel. 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. Indeed, your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” 16 Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and became a mother to him. 17 The neighbor women said, “A son has been born to Naomi,” and they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

How do we walk through the valleys of life? 

"For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God."

Today we are joined by our youth pastor, James Dolinger.

Mission and Naming 

Exodus 1:8-2:10; 3:1-15

Exodus 1:8 A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.

Exodus 1:9-22

Exodus 2:10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Exodus 3:1-15

Exodus 3:14 God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”

To know the name of God is to be an intimate friend; it is to have a place in God's being. 

"A pet name or nickname is allowed to be spoken only by those who share intimately in the other’s being. They share in that other person’s being by sharing in events. There is a shared history that allows us to use that single name. And using it becomes a way—with just that single word—of saying a whole narrative of love and encounter...Often these names are secrets, not just because the depth of intimacy makes them embarrassing but more so because they are sacred. Only the one who truly shares in the other’s being by being present in the most important of events can say the name."

Root, Andrew. The Pastor in a Secular Age (Ministry in a Secular Age Book #2) (p. 243). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

"To say the name is to have God’s being...Those who do not know the intimate acts of God’s saving love—not respecting the events of God’s arriving—haphazardly call him by name...For Moses to speak God’s name, then, is to say a whole narrative. The whole narrative of events of God’s past and coming arrivals is revealed in the speaking of the single name."

Root, Andrew. The Pastor in a Secular Age (Ministry in a Secular Age Book #2) (pp. 243-244). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Exodus 3:7-10

7 Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 9 So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, 10 therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

I have observed the misery of my people...have heard them crying out...I know about their sufferings...I have come down to rescue them from the power of the ...therefore, go. I am sending you...

Blessing and Naming

Genesis 32:9-13, 22-30

Motif- a dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition

Genesis 16:8 He said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She replied, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai.”

Genesis 16:13 So she named the Lord who spoke to her: “You are El-roi,” for she said, “In this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?” 

Genesis 21:2-3

2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him. 3 Abraham named his son who was born to him—the one Sarah bore to him—Isaac.

Genesis 32:6 When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau; he is coming to meet you—and he has four hundred men with him.”

Genesis 32:24-32

24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he struck Jacob’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip. 26 Then he said to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

27 “What is your name?” the man asked.“Jacob,” he replied.

28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”

29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”But he answered, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.

30 Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.” 31 The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel—limping because of his hip. 32 That is why, still today, the Israelites don’t eat the thigh muscle that is at the hip socket: because he struck Jacob’s hip socket at the thigh muscle.

"Jacob was left alone..." vs. 24

"What's your name?"

"Jacob"

"Who are you?"

"I'm a heel."

Genesis 32:28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”

Jacob's identity was defined by struggle, but that struggle was defined by his unwillingness to let go.

Important Statements:

• Jacob was left alone.

• Jacob's story is characterized by struggle.

• Struggle is a better descriptor for faith than comfort.

Genesis 32:30 Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.”

"For I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared."

Genesis 32:31 The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel—limping because of his hip.

"limping"

Genesis 32:31 The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel—limping because of his hip.

Genesis 32:28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”

"struggled with God..."

Let faith be characterized by the struggle.

Your name is _______________________.

Will you tell us about your limp/struggle?

We can trust the God who ____________________, ____________________, ____________________, and ____________________ struggled with because it is the same God who named Jacob, who gave him a limp, who delivered Israel from the slavery of Egypt and resurrected Christ on Easter morning.