Vineyard Church | Weekly Update September 4th, 2024

Don’t turn your back on bears, men you have wronged, or the dominant turkey during mating season… Some of the rules that apply on Shrute Farms that came with the song, “Learn your rules. You better learn your rules. If you don’t, you’ll be eaten in your sleep.” The Reverend Dwight Shrute was more than just a beet farmer, he was also quite the legalist…

This past Sunday, we began a journey through a passage of Old Testament scripture that invites us to experience the freedom that comes from a relationship with God. The trailhead for this journey was (is) my relational ignorance and woundedness evidenced by how I have previously experienced this passage.

In the past, reading through the Ten Commandments, the Ten Words the Living God spoke to the nation of Israel after they were freed from captivity, was uncomfortable because I read the Ten Words as rules and restrictions, something I knew would be difficult to live up to. Intertwined with my own ignorance was a theological stream that emanates from the Shrute Farms paradigm, one that promotes legalism and the image of God that would create such a system.

As we were winding down our series in the book of Galatians and entered the book of Philemon, there were a few subtle references to the importance of our image of God, but now, entering into our study of the Ten Commandments, the gravity of this cannot be overstated. The image we apply to God defines the relationship we have with Him. A God that makes rules that must be followed in order to gain and sustain a relationship with him would not be predicated on love but on compliance. Faith would not be required in this relationship as we would be under the expectation to perform and obey to earn a place in the kingdom.

If this were the God of scripture, history would look different. The God of scripture gives salvation before the law, which unhinges all of Shrute Farms theology. This is a God that gives Himself to relationship, then provides everything needed to protect, enhance, and project the freedom that comes from him. The truth is though, my own insecurities, ignorance, and woundedness get in the way of fully grasping this.

For a long time, I equated things going well as “God is happy” and hard times reflecting “Dad is mad.” I would see blessing through the lens of love and the rough waters as a sign that I must have fallen out of the favor of God and was receiving punishment. Reading the Ten Commandments, from this perspective, was a guide for how to keep God from getting angry rather than an invitation that begins with being set free from slavery.

I had an opportunity to consider how I image God this week as I walked through an event with one of my kids. This kid enjoys mental anguish enough to join the high school golf team, and she is currently playing in a tournament on a course that was the site of one (now two) of some of the most memorable dad moments of my life, moments that God is using to help me understand his nature a little more.

Two years ago, as a freshman golfer, my kid was playing in the AA Divisional Championship Tournament at Riverside Country Club in Bozeman. I was back here in Billings, working through another day, until I got a text message from her coach. “Hey, your kid is having a really rough day, she probably needs you.” Now, I realize that in the grand scheme of things, a bad day on the golf course is not a tragedy, but this is my kid. In a championship golf match, my kid had landed in a sand trap and couldn’t get out… 20 strokes on one hole. She was crushed. She heard girls in the locker room, “Did you hear about the girl that got a 20 on one hole?!”

My kid was crushed by the moment which crushed me. I made it to Bozeman in an hour and forty-three minutes. Wrapping her up in a hug, doing what I could to be comforting, and letting her need her dad was one of the happiest moments of my life. I could not (and would not) change what she went through, but I could make sure she knew that there was nothing that could happen to separate her from my presence.

And then today… (yesterday as you read this). My kid is back at Riverside Country Club, now a junior on the golf team. On the same ground that taught her humility, she played the round of her life and redeemed the course. She golfs better than me now. All day, I had the live scoreboard up in the office, and all day I tried to focus on work, but all day I was mentally in Bozeman. As the holes ticked away, I knew she was having a day. The joy I get to share with her as she applies what she has learned, the joy of watching her grow, mature, and develop resiliency, is the joy of a dad who just loves to watch his kid.

God, the Father, Abba, loves to watch His kid. Rough times, and good times, the God of All Comfort is All Comfort. This is the God that called His people into freedom, the God that doesn’t allow our sins to be barriers to Him, the God that does not kick us when we are down. The God that spoke the Ten Words to demonstrate His love. The God that came down the mountain into the valley of our depravity, then climbed another mountain to take on the consequences of our sin. His commands are in line with His nature, which means that what we will find on the journey through the Ten Commandments are Ten Promises of his presence with us.

Adam Greenwell
Pastor
Billings Vineyard Church | www.billingsvineyard.org