Monday, April 4, 2011

LENT 4
April 3/4, 2011
Pastor Timothy J. Spaude
Text: Hosea 5:15-6:3

“COME, LET US RETURN TO THE LORD!”
1. The Lord who chastens with love.
2. The Lord who is faithful with mercy.

Hosea 5:15-6:3 (NIV) “Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” 1 “Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”

It seems to be one of those things that comes standard issue with the sinful nature all are born with. I’m talking about the innate ability that all people have to take blessings God has provided for a long time for granted. Americans with their freedom. Children with food. Christians and their privileged relationship with God. Old Testament Israel was no different. Hosea served as a prophet of God in the northern nation of Israel around 750 BC. The people he served were privileged. They were the people of God. They hadn’t done anything to deserve it. They were born into it. Israel the chosen of God! They took this blessing for granted. They forgot that what God really wanted was their hearts. They gave outward obedience to God’s commands instead of willing obedience, if they even gave obedience at all. Their worship became a going through the motions. Their offerings were the leftovers of their flocks instead of firstfruits. It became acceptable for God’s people to join the pagan partying as part of their idol worship.
Trouble came. The powerful Assyrian army was swooping through the region, threatening to capture Israel, to absorb and deport the people. Why would God allow such a thing? Thankfully we don’t have to guess. We know because through Hosea God tells us. “Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” God was acting out of love! He was chastening His people. Often times when bad things happen to people they think God is punishing them. In truth God has the right to do bad things to punish people when they do wrong. With His people though, God chastens. And while chastening and punishing may often look and feel the same to the one chastened or punished, they have a far different purpose. Punishment makes someone pay for what they have done. Chastening is designed to help people get better. Parents try to do that with their children. God does it perfectly with His. He chastens with love. His affliction of the people of Israel with the Assyrians was designed to help them see their need for God so they would come back to Him. And the people of Israel got it. They said, “Come, let us return to the LORD.”
Come let us return to the Lord. Does God still chasten His people in love today? Certainly! It is in His Heavenly Father nature. Can we always know what those chastenings are? Not unless He tells us like He did here. But when hard and difficult things happen, the question is worth asking. Is an earthquake and tsunami and nuclear problems God’s chastening of people He loves whom He wants to turn to Him? Is economic recession God’s chastening for a nation that has taken Him and His blessing for granted? Is ongoing political unrest God’s chastening of a state that has taken Him for granted? All those questions are worth asking about the world, the nation, the state, but the more important ones are the ones we can ask ourselves. Do we need God’s chastening? Have we been taking our privileged status as the children of God for granted? Is that why our weekly member attendance has been shrinking with no discernable reason why? Have we decided it is OK to put God in second place in our weekly scheduling or maybe even lower, that it is OK to worship Him when it is convenient for us rather than by making sacrifices to put Him first because we love Him with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind? Is our struggle to meet our church budget because we set the sights too high, because God has not given us enough to live on, or because we think it is acceptable to offer our God leftovers instead of firstfruits, a pittance of our income, not even as much as we spend on entertaining ourselves? In your own life do you really believe it is only be grace alone that you get to be called a child of God is He pretty lucky to have you? Have we let society’s sins, pagan partying become acceptable among the people of God today? Is he getting outward obedience from us instead of willing, or no obedience at all? I don’t have the answers to those questions except for myself. You have them for you. If we have followed the sinful nature pull to take our God for granted, if we have lapsed into apathy, come, let us return to the Lord. Return to the Lord who only chastens in love. He knows we cannot attain real happiness unless our relationship with Him is right.
I can’t help but think of the practice some Christian have of giving up something for Lent. That can be done with the wrong motive of trying to make up for sin or the right motive of showing love for Jesus. Some choose to break a habit or give up a luxury. But what God wants us to give up is our reliance on ourselves and our ways rather than on Him, our nasty habits of taking Him for granted or valuing entertainment more than the Gospel. Come, let us return to the Lord!
Let us return to the Lord who is faithful with mercy. Listen to the people’s response. “Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” The people of Israel recognized God’s chastening. They knew they had been forsaking God. They knew they needed to return. And God made it easy for them. Do you see how? They knew God would be merciful. Follow their word pictures. He has torn us but he will heal us. He has injured but he will bind our wounds. He will revive us so that we may live. Just like we can count on the sun rising and the spring rains we can count on God’s mercy. In spite of their unfaithfulness God still got His message through. Repentant sinners always find mercy. They knew God would be merciful.
We know it too. We live in times when the proof they were waiting for has come. We know Messiah is Jesus Christ. As He announced in the Gospel lesson Jesus went to Jerusalem to serve by giving His life as a ransom for sinners. That’s why Paul could so firmly assert, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” God is rich in mercy and faithful with it. When the Lord calls us to repentance He makes it easy for us to return to Him because we know what He will say every time. “I love you. I forgive you. Now serve me in love.” Isn’t that the message that is received and proclaimed every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper? With the miracle of body and blood in bread and wine God says, “I love you. I forgive you. Go to serve.” The Lord is faithful with mercy. No matter what you have done or how far you have strayed God will welcome you back with open arms. Jesus is your proof. He is faithful with mercy.
We need to be faithful in repentance. If you happen to read this part of Scripture in your Bible you will see that verses 1-3 or our text have the heading “Unrepentant Israel.” That might surprise you because they sure sounded repentant. They sounded like they were going to return to the Lord, but they didn’t. Words were as far as it went. They didn’t follow through. And follow through is very important. Watch the shooters during the NCAA championships. If you like basketball and you watch the players who really can shoot, they all have great follow through. We need to spiritually as well so we don’t end up like Old Testament Israel. Our commitment to God, our repentance for sin cannot be word only. There must be the follow through of actions and truth. Changed behaviors. Changed scheduling habits. Changed money management. And we can do that because of the LORD. He makes it easy because He only chastens us out of love and is always faithful with mercy. Come, let us return to the LORD! Amen.

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