A series of new sermons from the book of Hebrews – No Perfect People Here.

December 2011 – Christmas on Trial Series

• December 4 – Punch Line – Matthew 16:13-20
• December 11 – Sign Here – Isaiah 7:1-14
• December 18 – Christmas Lights – John 1:1-14
• December 25 – Persian Paparazzi – Matthew 2:1-12

Rembrandt's painting of the Apostle Paul

Gary Meharg began teaching the new 14-week series Sunday, October 29.

• Romans 5 – Dead in Adam, Alive in Christ
• 1 Corintliians 15  - Resurrection in Christ
• 2 Corinthians 5 – Reconciliation in Chiist
• Galatians 5 – Christ has set you free
• Ephesians 3 – Gospel mystery revealed in Christ
• Philippians 2 – Christ’s example of humility
• Colossians 1 – The Preeminence of Christ
• 1 Thessalonians 4 – Christ, come quickly
• 2 Thessalonians 2 – Stand firm in Christ
• 1 Timothy 1 – Christ came to save sinners
• 2 Timothy 2 – Living with purpose through Christ
• Titus 3 – Justified by Christ
• Philemon – Forgiven in Christ
• Hebrews 8 – Hapax! Christ by one sacrifice!

The Prophet Joel - Russian Iconograph

The Twelve or Minor Prophets tend to be amongst the least studied portions of the Bible.   These Twelve speak with much unity on such topics as prosperity, social sins, idolatry, hesed, forgiveness, curse, blessing,  restoration, remnant, Day of the Lord, and foreign nations.  There is special treatment of God and His attributes.  The teacher will be Gary A. Meharg, an Oakland Hills member from Livonia. The classes will be held from 7:00 – 8:30pm on Wednesday nights  in the Fellowship Hall beginning September 28, 2011.  All are invited and encouraged to come. Christians are called to life long learning (discipleship).

The Minor Prophets (according to the New International Encyclopedia, 1909 edition) is a common designation for a group of twelve prophetical books in the Hebrew canon, which in the English Bible form the close of the Old Testament. It was employed as early as the time of Augustine, who are careful to explain that its use is occasioned by the brevity of the books and does not characterize their merit or importance.  The corresponding designation, major prophets, is applied to the longer books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The Hebrews called this group of writings ‘the Twelve’ and this nomenclature was followed by the Greeks.  The books included in the collection, in the order in which they are arranged in the Hebrew Bible, are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. This order is retained in the English Bible.

Oakland Hills Community Church (OHCC) is located on 8 Mile Road in Farmington Hills, Michigan.  Oakland Hills is a member congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in the historic Reformed and Presbyterian tradition.

When Life and Beliefs Collide

A group of ladies at Oakland Hills Community Church in Farmington Hills, Michigan are studying a book together starting this September. The book  is “When Life and Beliefs Collide” , by Carolyn Custis James. The group of women are drawn together from all over metro Detroit and south-east Michigan. The women — teenagers to retired — are from Dearborn, Livonia, Farmington Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Rochester, Romulos, Northville, Novi, Canton, and Plymouth (and other areas).  There are three options for meeting – Thursday night, Friday morning — or even a private Facebook group (for those who cannot attend in person).  Please call the church office at 248-478-5001 if you would like more information about participating in this women’s fellowship book study.

From a book review of  When Life and Beliefs Collide:

“When Life and Beliefs Collide raises a long-overdue call for us to think seriously about what we believe about God. With passion, brilliance, and eloquence, Carolyn Custis James weaves stories of contemporary women with episodes from the life of Mary of Bethany to illustrate the practical benefits of knowing God deeply… A book that calls us to be a composite of two women–Mary and Martha–who take time to know Jesus better and whose theology informs and emboldens their ministries to others.”

Sooner or later, life’s difficulties bring every Christian woman to God’s doorstep with questions too personal to ignore:

• ‘Why does God let me go through such painful circumstances?’
• ‘Why does he seem indifferent to my prayers?’

“We’re tired of spiritual pie in the sky. We want authentic, God-as-he-really-is faith — the kind that holds us together when our world is falling apart and equips us to offer strength and hope to others. When Life and Beliefs Collide raises a long-overdue call for us to think seriously about what we believe about God… Examining the misperceptions and abuses that discourage women from pursuing a deeper understanding of God, this insightful book demonstrates how practical and down to earth knowing God can be.”

• “This outstanding book offers the best demonstration that everyone needs theology, the best expository account of Mary and Martha, and the best trajectory for women’s ministry in modern North America that I have yet read.” ~ James I. Packer
• ‘Thoughtful, scholarly, and motivating . . . should inspire and encourage women for years to come.” ~ Joni Eareckson Tada

The author Carolyn Custis James (MA, Biblical Studies) travels extensively as a popular speaker for women’s conferences, churches, colleges, seminaries, and other Christian organizations. Her ministry organization, WhitbyForum, promotes thoughtful biblical discussion to help men and women serve God together. Carolyn founded and is president of the Synergy Women’s Network.

Becky Holloway said:

“This book changed my life. It is thoughtful, profound, real, and immensely challenging. It questions the notion of what it is to be a “theologian” and points out that we all do theology every day, whether we acknowledge it or not. James’s personal story has striking similarities to my own. Her husband almost completed a PhD at Westminster and then decided to go to Oxford to do a 2nd one. What she came to see is that God brought her young family to the UK not primarily so her husband could do a PhD but because He had amazing plans for each one of them. I read this book when we first moved to Aberdeen and it profoundly shaped my experience there.”

Edie will attend the  Oakland Hills Community Church (OPC) in Farmington Hills, Michigan on Sunday evening, March 27  at 6:00pm and share first hand stories of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  May God send waves of grace (a tsunami of grace) to Japan in the coming days.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” – Matthew 25:35

The OPC Disaster Response team has been providing updates about the needs in Japan. Recent reports were hopeful:  ”We give thanks in all of God’s good providences. The more we learn about the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami, the more we marvel at God’s goodness and grace in sparing those in Japan who we hold dear. All our missionaries and all those in our sister churches there, as far as we know, were spared loss of life. Two churches sustained significant if not total loss. But these are things that are replaceable…and there will be a time and season for that.”

Regarding the OPC Disaster Response, the OPC has set up a Japan Tsunami Relief Fund to which donations can be sent.

“Through the generosity of the church over the years, the Committee on Diaconal Ministries has been able to build up a healthy reserve from which to pull funds for such a time as this. So we do not have an emergency need for donations, but would like to replenish that reserve to support the continuing need that we see in Japan. Also, we desire to give the church the opportunity to respond financially to this disaster through the church where that ‘cup of cold water’ will be given in the name of Christ.”

“At this immediate time, your gifts are being used to provide blankets, rice, ramen soup, toilet paper, fuel, and other basic necessities. These are being purchased in the Tokyo region and loaded up in rental trucks. Our missionaries have obtained permits to drive on the expressways, reserved exclusively for relief workers. The supplies are then being driven the 200 miles north to the Sendai area, where cold and even some snow has fallen. Upon arriving there, the supplies are being distributed, along with Bible and tracts, through church members in those areas.”

The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith, in the Calvinist theological tradition. In 1643, the English Parliament called upon “learned, godly and judicious Divines”, to meet at Westminster Abbey in order to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, government and discipline of the Church of England. Their meetings, over a period of five years, produced the confession of faith, as well as a Larger Catechism and a Shorter Catechism. For more than three centuries, various churches around the world have adopted the confession and the catechisms as their standards of doctrine, subordinate to the Bible.

Class handouts are available.  You can review the outlines below, or download the pdf for week 1, or the 2nd outline for week 2. Update:  Here are PDF’s to download for week 3, week 4, and week 5.

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Preview / Outline for week 1

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Preview / Outline for week 2

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What was 16th Century Christendom like? Church sex and graft scandals were rampant–Popes, Cardinals, Priests, and Monks kept mistresses, whorehouses, illegal children, relatives, and mercenaries on the payroll. They built massive church edifices, expanded real estate holdings, manipulated politics, expanded bureaucracies, and peddled meritorious salvation (fees, indulgences, penance, relics, titles). “Doing” in the Church had replaced “believing” in the Christos. The Bible could neither be used nor understood by the people: it was chained to altars and written in Latin, the language of the select minority.

Martin Luther, Reformer

The central truths of the Bible, the good news of Jesus’ redemptive, atoning, expiating, and propitiating work for salvation by grace through faith, were lost. But the Holy Spirit led Christ’s Church back to these truths, using great teachers, preachers, and translators of the Word:  Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, and John Knox. The last is the progenitor of our Presbyterian heritage.

Believers of today should immediately recognize the parallels to our own day. Scandals rock the church, and the media dramatizes and demonizes them 24/7. Many churches are indistinguishable from for-profit corporations with product development, test-sampling, marketing, merchandizing, CFOs, and Hollywood
entertainment methods and sex appeal. Hectic schedules, activities, and media events can overshadow the teaching, preaching, and translating of the Word (doctrine, discipleship, and missions both domestic and foreign). The Church, once again, risks eclipsing “believing” in Jesus with “doing” in the Church, even with the prolific availability and readability of the Bible.

The Holy Spirit today summons us to remain Reformed, to not compromise the Gospel to be altered, modified, varnished, or manipulated by our surrounding culture, economy, government, or personal proclivities. Hence the contemporaneous importance of Luther’s tower experience over Romans 1:17: we, like Abraham, are justified before the legal bar of a holy God through faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone.

Then, as now, we should remain “ever reforming” (Semper Refromanda), and the Reformers’ habits of spirit, mind, and application show us how.

Soli Deo Gloria
~ by Mark Tarpinian

Rev. Ralph Rebandt, pastor of Oakland Hills Community Church has been active in the city of Farmington Hills for over 20 years, and has served as a chaplain for the police departments of Farmington Hills and Beverly Hills for many years. Each year, on police officer appreciation Sunday, a gift is given to honor an injured or disabled police officer, or to help a family member of a police officer.

The Scripture says in Romans 13:1-4: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”