In 2008, I preached this sermon from Hosea 6. Now 10 years later, we are once again looking at the prophet Hosea. I thought I'd re-post this because I think it is an effective presentation of how the 21st church can live the truth in the words of this prophet from the 8th century BC.
The next post will always be a message from Hosea. It's one I wrote this week, but have decided not to preach this Sunday. It's not bad, but I don't think it is the right message for our church this week. Still, it might bless someone, so I'm posting the text.
I don’t know if you
are in that place. But if you are, come
this morning to the arms of God. It
could be you’ve wandered. You’ve been
hostile. You just ignored God. If could be, you’ve avoided. You know God is calling and you’re running
the other way as fast as possible. It
could be you’ve given in to temptation. We
are a transforming church when our members are willing to let down all facades
and come to God in confession and repentance.
When we do that, people stream to us because they know they’ll be washed
in God’s raining mercy. So, if you need
to, don’t wait. Come today
The next post will always be a message from Hosea. It's one I wrote this week, but have decided not to preach this Sunday. It's not bad, but I don't think it is the right message for our church this week. Still, it might bless someone, so I'm posting the text.
Merciful Rain (Hosea
6:1-6; Matthew 9:12; 12:7)
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Here’s what happened: Matthew was at
work as a tax collector. He probably did
what every tax collector did. He’d take
a little more than required and pocket the difference. His work was not popular, but it was
profitable. He was hated for taking from
his own people, the Jews.
So,
one day, he was at work at his dishonest lucrative job. That’s when Jesus came. Everyone had heard about Jesus. Demons melted in fear before him. Diseased people came to him and were
healed. Teachers of the law were
confounded by his wisdom and confronted by the fire of truth within Him that
revealed their own hypocrisy. His genius
seemed beyond the scholars, yet he taught in word pictures that everyday men
could relate to. His stories were about
fishing and farming.
Now, here He was, standing at
Matthew’s table. “Follow me.” Two simple words said so much. Two words; Matthew’s who world blew up! “Follow me.”
Matthew stood, left the table and the piles of money, and followed. His heart must have beaten a mile a
minute. It wanted to explode out of his
chest. “Follow me.” Matthew knew everything was changed, and life
would never again be the same.
Somewhere in that first walk at
Jesus’ side, Matthew worked up the courage to ask Jesus if they could have a
party. He was new to the whole disciple
thing. He’d just been cheating peasants
out of their last pennies a few moments ago.
He didn’t know if disciples were allowed to party. He didn’t know the master loves parties. I wonder if he was surprised when Jesus said,
“Heck yeah! I’m up for a party.”
Matthew invited everybody he knew
which turned out to be a problem. The people
he knew were other dishonest tax collectors, and a few women who had been
rejected by their husbands and rejected by their families and rejected by the
synagogue. In fact, the only people who
spent any time with these women were the men who paid to sleep with them. The women did this work so they would have
money for food and shelter. It’s the
only work they could get. Do you see the
problem with the tax collectors and prostitutes at Matthew’s party? If you do, you’re like the Pharisees. Jesus had no problem laughing and
fellowshipping with these people. He
loved them. The Pharisees were disgusted
by them and they told Jesus as much.
That’s when he said it. Jesus looked at the Pharisees and said, “Go
and learn what this means. ‘I desire
mercy, not sacrifice.’” Then Jesus said,
“I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”[i] Jesus said it, and Matthew, who had been a
disciple for all of an afternoon, remembered.
Later on, Jesus got the Pharisees
bent out of shape again. This time, his
disciples were harvesting grain on the Sabbath.
Sabbath is extremely important, but, the Pharisees didn’t understand
that the Sabbath was a gift God gave us, not a restriction He imposed on
us. It is a command to keep the Sabbath
holy, but it is for man’s good. Hungry
men need to eat, even on the Sabbath.
So, the disciples picked grain and
the Pharisees fell apart and made accusations.
Jesus looked at them and said, “If you had known what this means, ‘I
desire mercy not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.”[ii] Matthew remembered. He remembered the first time when Jesus said,
“Go and learn what this means.” He
remembered the second time, “If you had known what this means.” Years later, after the resurrection, after
years of service, as an old man, when he sat to write the gospel, Matthew
remembered. Jesus desires mercy, not
sacrifice.
There’s more to this story than
meets the eye. In saying, ‘[God] desires
mercy, not sacrifice,’ Jesus places the prophets in the center of his theology
of torah. Jesus locates his
understanding of how the law of God is to be lived out in the words of Israel’s
prophets, specifically Hosea. This
phrase that exposed the coldness and restrictiveness of the Pharisees’ hearts
and burrowed into Matthew’s soul is a quote.
Jesus spoke Hosea’s words.
Imagine a church in a small town led
by a pastor and few elders who had big dreams.
The church was 75 years old. The
original members knew beyond a doubt that God had led them to plant this church
in this remote area. The surrounding
counties grew, but it would always be a rural place. The people were ok with that because ‘small’
and ‘big’ were inconsequential words to them.
Their identity was in the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. Their mission was to share His gospel with
the people in their community whether the number was in the 100’s or the 100’s
of thousands.
Early on, it was a church that prayed
for people who were in the hospital.
They prayed for people when a tornado destroyed the barn or a fire left
them homeless. The prayers were
accompanied by action – baking, taking people in, visiting, helping people find
new jobs, rebuilding what had been lost.
The church never became very big doing that work, but the whole county
knew that the Spirit of Jesus breathed in these humble people.
Years went by, and the pastor
retired. More years passed and another
pastor came and another. Those original
members aged, and died. Some of their
children moved away. The founding
vision, evangelical and zealous, was still written on plaques on the church
walls, but the church lost steam and declined.
Now though, there was a new pastor and new elders and big dreams.
There was also a new factory in town –
a big one. The owner was a
multimillionaire. His business practices
were similar to those of the tax collectors in Jesus’ day. He used people, cheated when he knew he
could, and made money hand over fist.
The town was small enough that the ambitious pastor and the unscrupulous
factory owner crossed paths. Of course
the pastor invited the man to church.
The pastor had big plans for the church to become a big deal. He felt he needed this heavy-hitter along
with the other important people in town in his church. They struck up a friendship and in time the
rich man began attending services – sporadically. He had no conviction of the heart. Nothing in his personal or professional life
changed. But before long, he was chair
of elders at the church.
The church got bigger. More people came because they were excited to
see the new building the rich man had donated.
It included a gym and a weight room.
The pastor was proud of all that was happening. He swelled and his chest puffed as he looked
in the mirror. Almost half the people in
the town came to his church. He was
careful to never cross his benefactor.
If there ever came up in meetings conflict, he always looked to the
factory owner before he did anything else.
He never took a stance in opposition to the factory owner’s point of
view. The relationship was symbiotic and
both men benefited.
Wouldn’t that fiery prophet from the
Old Testament, Hosea, have something to say were he to venture to this town and
see this church? Hosea was the prophet
God told to marry a prostitute. He was
commanded by God to enter into a relationship with a woman knowing from the
start she would cheat on him. And of
course it happened. But, we miss the
point of Hosea’s words if we get bogged down in the absurdity of marrying a
whore. Sometimes Bible readers open to
Hosea 1, and read verse 2 “Go take for yourself a wife of whoredom,” and they
think, ‘wow! It says whoredom in the Bible. This must be interesting.’
It’s fine that it’s interesting. More importantly, Hosea wrote in a
groundbreaking way, being the first to associate Israel’s worship of Assyrian
fertility gods with the sin of adultery.[iii] Hosea, much more than the prophets before him,
used marriage as a metaphor when he spoke of the relationship God had with
Israel. God was the proper husband and
would provide for all of Israel’s needs.
Israel, for her part, was to accept the standards of behavior laid upon
[her] in the covenant relationship.[iv] She was to live according to the ethics and
righteousness taught by Moses, and she was to depend on God for all things and
worship Him only. She did not need to
cozy up to the Assyrians.
The pastor did not need to kowtow to
the big businessman. Sure, it provided a
fancy new worship center. But what
else? Compromised preaching? A chairman of elders who blatantly
disregarded God’s call for ethics and God’s concern for the poor and God’s
condemnation of greed? A pastor who
forfeited his authority so that he’d have a good reputation and a nice salary? The first sin Hosea condemned in Israel was
spiritual unfaithfulness.
The second was pride. How often does pride creep into what we are
doing even though it is universally condemned throughout the Bible? Don’t we have a fine facility? Haven’t we done so much to help people who
need it?
Think of the pastor in the fictitious
church preaching to 1000 people every week.
Think of him beaming as the masses hang on his every word. Hosea says in chapter 5, “Israel’s pride
testifies against him. They have dealt
faithlessly with the Lord. Now the new
moon will devour them along with their fields.” [v]
The third sin was a fruitless
alliance. Israel thought salvation could
be found in joining forces with Assyria.
When that fell through and appeasing the Assyrians led to being
dominated by the Assyrians, the Israelites thought they could find salvation in
an alliance with their old enemies – the Egyptians. That failed to stop the oncoming train, and
the leaders of Israel – supposedly the men who would represent God in the world
– ended up in exile. The Assyrian exile
was brief. The Babylonian exile lasted
50 years. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day
sought alliance with a corrupted king – Herod.
He was a co-conspirator in framing Jesus and getting Jesus
executed. Forty years later, it was for
naught. The security the Pharisees
sought in ousting Jesus went up in smoke as the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and
leveled the temple, razing it to the ground.
The pastor of the imagined church in our story formed an alliance with a
crook. He got a big building, a big
check, but he was an impotent leader, and his soul rotted to the core.
Spiritual Adultery – Pride – Fruitless
dependence on people instead of God; these are the things Hosea colorfully
condemned in his forceful prophecy. We
are not Israelites in the 8th century BC. We do not live in Jesus’ day. We are a real church, not a made up one. We though are tempted to worship people,
things, and institutions other than Jesus.
We might not think we do that, but sometimes we give the loyalty that
belongs to him to other things. We are
tempted to pride. Sometimes we burst
with it and there’s no room for gracious humility before God. Sometimes we put trust in banks, loans,
wealthy donors, property, and other things.
None can deliver as God can.
Jesus believed that the words Hosea spoke 750 years before he was born
were still speaking when he lived. Those
words still speak today. Is there an
answer? Is there a way out when we fall
into the sins of spiritual adultery, pride, and putting our trust in men and
things instead of God?
“Come; let us return to the Lord.” If you’re ever in search of a simple example
of repentance, read Hosea 6:1a. “Come;
let us return to the Lord.” Hosea spoke
with force against the problems that spiritually undermined God’s people –
Israel in 750BC and us today: worshipping other gods/spiritual adultery; pride;
fruitless dependence on people instead of God.
These patterns of sin lead to destruction, but there’s a solution. Repentance; come; let us return to the
Lord. Some in Israel heard Hosea’s
prophecy, felt the pull of God’s Spirit in their hearts, and uttered these
words. They were convicted. If we listen to a prophet in the right way,
with humble hearts and open ears, we too will fall under conviction. It’s like the hand of God grabs hold of out
hearts and holds them tightly because He loves and doesn’t want to give us up
to our sins.
Make no mistake, God was angry. When the people sing their song of
repentance, they compare the Lord to rain.
“He will come to us like showers, like spring rains that water the
earth.”[vi] Any seeker who has been starved for love, for
purpose, and for meaning in life knows the refreshment in finding Jesus and
finding wholeness in Him. He said in the
Gospel of John that he gives living water and when we drink of his spirit,
living water pours forth from us[vii]
to refresh those around us with peace, compassion, joy, and generosity. The Lord is unquestionably a rain that cleans
us and makes us new. He does this when we turn to him.
Hosea records the people responding in
repentance and calling out to God, a spring rain shower. God uses other images to describe himself and
his anger toward them in the previous chapter.
“Therefore I am like maggots to Ephraim, and like rottenness to the
house of Judah.” “I will be like a lion
to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, myself will tear and go away; I shall
carry off and no one shall rescue.” I am
pretty sure if I made a multiple choice test of Biblical metaphors used to
describe God and passed it out to everyone here, and the choices were ‘God is
like an eagle, or a dove, or a lion, or a bunch of maggots, no one here would
check off maggots. God was mad.
If we want to turn away from him and
worship the dollar or in pride worship ourselves or put our trust in our
government for safety and purpose instead of trusting Him, He’s rottenness to
us. He’s an angry lion that mauls and
devours us.
Still, the people who repented were right. God gets angry, but God is a spring
rain. In spite of us and in spite of
himself, he continually loves his people.
“What shall I do with you Ephraim?
What shall I do with you O Judah?”
Hosea records God’s anger, the people’s repentance, and God’s
agony. Justice says destroy, but God’s
heart of love is bigger than his anger.
When the people repent, he may let them hurt, but God will not give them
up. When we sin, we do suffer pain as a
result. But, God does not give us
up. The dramatic twists and turns of the
relationship of God and His people take us to the high point of Hosea’s
prophecy in chapter 6. This is the verse
that inspired Jesus in his dealings with legalistic Pharisees. This is the verse that reminds us that our
Sunday worship becomes significant in our Monday – Friday conduct.
“I desire steadfast love and not
sacrifice; the knowledge of God and not burnt offerings.” The sacrifices and burnt offerings were the
central part of worship services in Israel, but God did not want it if the
people giving it turned around and did evil to each other the rest of the
week. God did not want elaborate worship
rituals from a people that mistreated the poor, disregarded God’s ways, and
chased after false gods.
When we understand that, and our
worship is full of mercy that speaks through our daily lives, our big dreams are
not for large building and massive crowds. Our big dreams are for the people
the church will help. Our big dreams are
about worshipping God with genuine hearts whether it is with a professional
worship band or old hymnals and an out of tune piano. Our big dreams are for transformed lives
whether 5 people or 1000. Our big dreams would lead us to call the factory
owner to repentance, not make him an elder just for the sake of so we can get
his tithe.
“I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.” God wants our worship songs and our Sunday
morning offering of music, word, money, and prayer to lead us to become a
community of love in action; to be known for the way we show what God is all
about as we take care of hurting people.
Commitment to social justice and abounding compassion become what
matters to us.
Jesus exercised interpretation as he
often did in quoting Hosea. When
Pharisees wanted to condemn sinners, forgetting of course that we are all
sinners, Jesus responded to them saying “Go and learn what this means. ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” When Pharisees tried to intimidate Jesus’
disciples by using the law as a blunt object to bludgeon them, Jesus responded,
“If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice,’ you would
not have condemned the guiltless.”
Hosea’s words understood and expressed by Jesus, bring us to a moment of
truth. Disciples hear Jesus and they are convicted to love and give mercy to
people. Pharisees hear Jesus and are
proud that they know Him and they look down on those who are lost. Are we Disciples or Pharisees? Do we show mercy or are we indifferent toward
God and condemning toward one another?
[invite
worship team up]
I
don’t know what’s in your heart in this moment.
I know that there have been times this year, when I have had to repent,
because I wasn’t looking to God. I had
my back to Him and I was wrapped up in my own pride. I had to say, in my heart, “Come; return to
the Lord.” I had to pray for God’s
merciful rain to fall on me. And it
did. God didn’t say to me, Rob, you’re a preacher. You know better! No, God said to me, Welcome home my blessed, beloved one.
And I fell into His
arms.
No comments:
Post a Comment