Week Ten – Book Notes – Beholding a Lesser God

Week Ten – Book Notes Beholding a Lesser God

Introduction:

In the first part of the book, the time was taken to examine our view of God and to ask ourselves if our view of God is truly Biblical.  The lesson moves on to obstacles that would hinder all efforts to live upon the things we have wrestled with.  Those are listed in the workbook but I’ll list them here since not everyone has the workbook.

 

  • Idolatry: beholding a lesser god and then presenting that lesser god to people through our words and choices.
  • Pragmatism: choosing what appears to work over obedience because we doubt the sufficiency of God.

If you were to ask church members how many of them read their bibles daily, the numbers would probably vary widely.  But if you were to ask non-believers how many read their bibles daily, I would guess the answer would be pretty consistent.  Probably as close to zero as you could imagine, if not zero.  Most un-churched people will get their idea about who God is by watching our lives.  One way I have heard this expressed is that your life is the only Bible some people will ever be exposed to.

Series of quotes from others:  (not the whole quotes)

  • Hindu preacher – call God by any name, God has given freedom to do our own thinking.  Has said, listen to all I say but make your own decision, we are all allowed to choose our own path.
  • Student – God is a guy in high top sneaker with his feet up on a desk.  His attention is directed to somewhere else.
  • University student – God loves and He or She has a great compassion but I believe that God has some faults just like everybody else.  He is overwhelmed by what is happening.
  • Teacher in a seminary – God is in love with me.  Somebody who is utterly convinced of my worth and my value.  God has been trying to get a message across to all of humanity through all kinds of means and ways.
  • Episcopal deacon and seminary professor – I prefer ‘Great Spirit’ which the Cherokee nation uses or “Master of the Universe” which is Hasidic.
  • Catholic priest and author – God is an unrestrained adolescent, showing off, an excessive, exuberant, playful whiz, determined gamester, is charming and just a little daft.  Will God grow up?  Will She become mature?  No Way!

Of course none of these are even close to a biblical understanding of Who God is.

 

Psalm 115:2-3 –

 

Day One:  Revisiting the Theme of Idolatry

What is Idolatry? It is the willful or unintentional embrace of an inadequate view of God. It can exist my manufacturing a wrong god, as with the ancient idol Baal; or it can exist in the more subtle form of manufacturing a wrong version of the true God.  The story of Aaron and golden calf was striking.  They were attempting to worship Jehovah but because of the building of their effort to represent God, it was idolatry.

Why Idolatry? This is usually difficult to admit.  The purpose of idolatry is to find a substitute for God that we are comfortable with.  We seek something that serves our own wants and desires more than serving something for another’s sake.  We prefer a manageable God, a comfortable God.  Idolatry also creeps in when we are the primary focus of our life.

There might also be the tendency to treat God as if He were a cosmic soft-drink machine.  If we put in the right coins, we get the expected benefit.  You will hear this in the prayer that questions what God is doing because it doesn’t align with our expectations of what we expect from Him.

There might be an image in our minds of a doting grandfather who is kind and understand, never ruffled and never stern.  Such a God would never discipline us but rather we expect Him to indulge us.  And in terms of being active in our lives, this kind of God would not interfere in our lives so we much take care of ourselves.

Some have an image of God as angry, stern judge who sees our miserable attempts to do better and yet is never satisfied.  He expects perfection and He points out our failures.  He is waiting for us to get it right and we sense a growing impatience with our continued failure.  We consider our performance as the foundation for all God’s actions hence we are still in charge of our relationship with Him.

Maybe to some, God is the coach there to help us reach our potential.  He makes sure that we are trying to get better and is there to let us know that we have amazing potential.

The biggest trouble with these is that there might be a measure of truth in all the parts but when the focus is out of balance with the biblical God, we have a God of our own imagination.  This God is a God of our own design because He is not the God of the Bible.  We have created a God with Whom we are comfortable and we seek a church that accommodates that errant view or permits that errant view.  Some churches have embraced a certain view of God because they believe it is the avenue to church growth.  There are churches that have tailored their messages and services in order to attract people who don’t know God or who have a non-biblical view of God.

READ: Isaiah 44:9-20 – Helps us know how to identity an idol.  What are the parts of this?

Day Two:  Beholding a Lesser God in our Actions

If we hold to a lesser god, it will show up in our actions.   The way we choose to live will show our view of God.  This is perhaps the most cutting examination of our view of God.  If you possess a lessor view of God, then the hidden things of our hearts and minds reveal this to us.

Atheism is rejected by all believers but there is a danger when our lifestyles seem to imply that God doesn’t exist.  When people view our lives, they may call into question God’s existence or His character.  Your life either denies or affirms the existence of the God who is in the Bible.

Confessing Believer, Practicing Atheist – Turn with me to a passage that is one of the most profound messages I have ever heard and I might have preached it here before because it touched my life so profoundly.  The Feeding of the 5,000 Matthew 14:13-21.  The Feeding of the 5,000 — It is very hard not to preach this passage.  After the reaction of Herod and the death of John the Baptist, Jesus seems to pull back His disciples and His followers.  When Jesus withdraws He was left with 12 of His closest followers. Jesus, always the teacher, is still teaching them things as they escape the crowd and get on a boat.

The crowds not only followed Jesus, but anticipated where He would get out of the boat and met Him there.  Did Jesus have a sense of excitement that the ministry was truly coming together and that maybe things might start to get really serious now?  No, He felt compassion for them and began to heal their sick.  This is a picture of God in the flesh, Jesus showing compassion on those who are weaker (and everyone He meets is weaker).  But a problem is approaching.

Note the problem stated in verse 15.  Even the slow but practical disciples saw it coming.  “The place is desolate, and the time is already past: so send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”  Normal question:  We have a hungry crowd.  Human solution: Let them take care of their own needs.  One problem that got in the way: Jesus was not your average person.

So Jesus asks a question.  Do you think that Jesus needed direction?  Do you think that Jesus didn’t know what to do?  Usually when Jesus asks a question of the disciples, it is to help the disciples understand their own hearts.  Jesus wants the disciples to reveal their own hearts to themselves for Jesus clearly understood their own hearts.  Jesus wants to reveal what going on inside of the disciples to the disciples.  By the way, do you ever have questions that come to you in your own life?  Jesus permits questions to arise sometimes so that our own hearts can be revealed to ourselves.  Believe it or not, it is in these times of questioning that we learn if we really trust God or not.  This time is no exception to that principle of testing the disciples.  Turn to John 6.

Philip is the first one that gives the totally human response to the problem.  What do you suppose that would be?  Well, you want to feed 5,000 people (plus women and children) then you got to have money, Moula, cash on hand.  But when Philip opens the little black treasury box, there was only 200 denarii.  In modern day counting, that is around 2,000 Big Mac Value Meals.  [Min. wage X 200 days]  (But most likely, you have between 15,000 to 20,000 people present.  Philip is what one preacher called, “A professing believer but a practicing atheist”.  When Philip looked at how he should solve a problem, he counted only his human resources.  This is the response of a Professing Christian, Practicing Atheist.

Then there is the response of Andrew, Peter’s brother.  It’s a little to a healthy believing response.  Andrew gives what he has to the service of the Lord but then answers his own question by asking “What good is this for so many people?”   His first act of giving what he has is an act of obedience.  His comment is a question of ‘what value could there be in this gift’?   Really, the only one who seems to understand what Jesus can do is the little boy who gives up his lunch for God to turn into something remarkable.  Andrew probably only brings it to Jesus because the little kid wouldn’t let him do otherwise.  Where as Philip wouldn’t throw in his resources because he believed the problem too big, Andrew throws them in but isn’t convinced that it will be of any good purpose.  Both of them forgot that they were dealing with the One who made manna for 40 years without their help.  Only one little boy senses that Jesus can do anything.  What do you suppose the lunch was worth in Jesus’ time?  How much would it have cost you to buy 5 loaves and two fish during the time of Jesus?  I couldn’t find an exact number, but my best guess would be between ½ and 1 denarii.   They could have gone out and bought another lunch like his 200 times but that would not have fed the crowd.  The little boy is an example of a confessing believer and a practicing believer.  He believed Jesus had the power to accomplish anything.

When Jesus has your resources, He is ready to do something remarkable with them. He tells His disciples to announce to the people to take a seat.  We are about to serve dinner to 15,000.  The Bible says very little about the meal, I’m sure that the fish was fresh and the bread was good.  What it talks more about is the leftovers.  Just in case the disciples didn’t get the point the first time around, Jesus arranges for there to be how many baskets of leftovers?  Now they can be “Professing Believers and Practicing Believers”.  Each disciple got his own basket of leftovers to stare at after the conclusion of the meal.  It gave them the perfect reason to marvel about Jesus.  Now that they have seen more of Jesus, they get a chance to have some personal response to this information as Jesus walks on water.

When we spend our days in worry about God’s ability, we are living like the Professing Believers and the Practicing Atheist.  As well as practical deist.

Practical Deism – This is a lifestyle that is based on the assumption that while God really exists, He will not again be intervening in human lives.  In other words, He is the God of the past but we don’t expect all those wonderful descriptions of God to carry practical implications for today.  In order to be a practical deist, you simply have to make all your decisions without considering the activity of God in your life.  Living as though God has no role or place in your practical life.