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Is Jesus your Lord? Is that all? That’s a problem!
Devotional Thought of the Day:
In that day— this is the LORD’s declaration— you will call Me, “My husband,” and no longer call Me, “My Baal. (my master)” Hosea 2:16 HCSB
Faith needs intellect if it is to be understood and practiced. But it needs, above all, an intellect that will not only be productive but will also be able to understand what is proper to it. It needs an intellect that hears.
There is a big difference in the relationship between a husband and wife, and a master and his servant. Even in the days of Jesus, or in the days of Hosea, there was a huge difference.
And yet, for many today, the idea of a relationship with God is one where we are the slaves and God is the Master. While Jesus is indeed Lord of Lords and King of Kings, for the people of God there is a relationship that is more important,
Far more important.
Far more meaningful, far more amazing, far more, dare I say it?
Far more intimate. (not in a sexual way, but a spiritual/emotional manner)
Hosea talks of God as our spouse, noting the incredible change from our identifying His as Lord, to identifying Him as our spouse, our beloved. That is the nature of faith, of a relationship in which we learn to depend completely on God, on His presence, His mercy, His incredible deep love for us all. We need to learn that God desires to spend time with us, desires that we know the width and breadth, the height and depth of His love! That He wants us to experience it, even if we can’t explain it. (Modern forensic apologists and theologians take note!) This is the God who calls us His own, who makes us His own, no matter the cost, and shows the greatest love, in dying that we might live.
That’s not the love of a master, a lord, a Ba’al.
That’s the love of a husband, who adores His precious bride. (see Eph. 5!)
We know from scripture that even demons can see Jesus as Lord. (Mark 5. Matt 8, James 2:19) and that many will identify Him as Lord, whom he doesn’t know.
But He knows the ones He loves, and who love Him. He knows those who hear His voice and walks with Him. (this is why Pope Benedict/Cardinal Ratzinger talks about the need of the theologian to hear God to properly understand Theology.) We need to hear him, to hear of his love, to hear of His care, to know He is with us.
So rejoice in the love of God! Talk with Him, listen to Him, and rejoice in His presence!
And if you don’t know how to do that, let’s talk and listen and see what His word, His self-revelation to us says. AMEN
Ratzinger, J. (1992). Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. (I. Grassl, Ed., M. F. McCarthy & L. Krauth, Trans.) (p. 329). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
Epiphany! I Have Revealed My Faithfulness! A Sermon on Micah 6
Epiphany! I Have Revealed My Faithfulness
Micah 6:1-8
† I.H.S. †
May you rejoice today, as you consider the promises of God, made to you and to all people, as He teaches us about His faithfulness!
All Rise… the court is in session:
In today’s sermon, we see an interesting civil court case, one that has some very interesting testimony and a wonderful surprise or two…
Like many civil trials, there is a complaint, and sort of a counter-complaint.
The adversaries are talking about who has kept their part of the deal, and what that means.
The trial is not what you would normally expect, for Man and God going to trial. It is not one where man is on trial, to see whether a man is guilty or innocent. Nor is it a trial as someone tries assert that the evidence given to mankind demands a verdict, that God exists.
It is more like a case for what they used to call an “alienation of affection,”
Man’s complaint
The trial opens with God inviting mankind to state their case against Him. What promises did God make, where in the covenant did God fail? Our carefully planned out points of complaint are seen on the next slide. (Blank)
Yes, there they are….
Now you might be saying that there are plenty of things I can complain about. The existence of heart diseases, cancer, poverty, hunger, and the lack of peace seem to come right to mind.
Remember, the case is about the alienation of affection. Did God break his promises to Israel. Did God break His promises to us.
And there is little evidence that He did, no, there is no evidence he did.
His surprising complaint
We then get to God’s complaint.
It’s then the case becomes clear, for He doesn’t shred us (or Israel) for our sin, for all the disrespect we show to authority, and pain we’ve caused to others lives. He doesn’t go after us for adultery, or what we’ve taken from others, for our gossip or our jealousy and what it causes us to do.
Instead, hear God’s complaint….
“O my people, what have I done to you? What have I done to make you tired of me!”
Really? Of all the things that God could complain of, He complains that we’ve grown tired of Him?
Really?
That sounds… weak? wimpy? Like God is a lovestruck teenager, whose girlfriend was stolen by the class president/football team captain?
“What have I done to make you tired of me?”
Could God really be that in love with us? Does He desire to call us “His” that much?
Epiphany reveals to us that he loves us that much.
Not just infatuation, but pure desire, pure love, and His work proves it.
And His case is.. What?
God will go on to make a case, that there is no reason for us to be alienated from Him, there is no reason to deny Him the affection he so longs for.
Remember the rescue from Egypt?
What about the time that prophet was paid to curse you and blessed you instead? Do you remember that?
Do you remember me?…..
Do you do something to remember me?
God tells them what He’s done, as he says, in the midst of your rebellion, from the Acacia Grove to Gilgal’s caves, I did everything to teach you about my faithfulness.
God wanted to instill in Israel the idea that He’s not giving up on them. He wanted them, just like He wants us, to count on Him, to count on Him in the way that a God is supposed to be counted on by His people, by His beloved children.
That’s a challenge for us, to know this love, which is why we have to remember, to see it again over and over. TO think back daily on God proving that faithfulness as He cleansed us from all sin. TO think about it as God calls us to remember the Body broken, the wine that was spilled so that we could be with Him, now and for eternity.
That’s why God doesn’t need all the sacrifices, that’s why we don’t have the blood of calves and rams and more oil than you can count.
That’s not what He’s after, He doesn’t want complete submission and surrender, and lives spent in trying to pay back the cost of all we’ve broken.
God wants our affection, our presence, our love.
And in Epiphany we celebrate Him revealed that to us, as Christ comes to love us.
Micah 6:8
Which brings us to that final verse, as God tells us what is good… and what He wants from us.
TO do what is right – or to put it another way, to live in this relationship where He is our God, and we are His people. To love His cHesed, to know that loving kindness/mercy/love, that loyalty, and faithfulness He has for us, and to walk with Him, realizing what it means to be His beloved.
Those things, we don’t tire of, those things will cause us to be in such awe, those things will draw us into His glory and love.
No, they have done those things – for we are in Epiphany, the season celebrating His presence among us, and our presence in Him. AMEN!
Faithfulness, Sex and our Relationship with God
Treasuring God’s Gifts
Means We Value Deep
Relationships, especially Marriage
Ex. 20:14, Eph 2:10. 5:27, Luke 10:25-28
In Jesus Name!
May you know well God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who brings mercy, love nad peace into your life!
Really – This Commandment is a Topic WE need to cover?
When I started to write out the topics of this series of sermons, when I came to the 6th commandment, my first reaction is that this would be a fine sermon to hear Chris preach on, or perhaps Vicar Mark, or Vicar Albert.
Simply because talking about Adultery means touching on the subject of the three letter word that begins with S and ends with X.
For me, it is one of those topics I would rather not talk about, it is too personal, too intimate, and like many guys, I’d rather talk about anything else, especially in a group with both men and women in it.
Heck, it is a topic I don’t want to talk about with a group of women or a group of men.
But I think my reticence about discussing the topic gives me a hint towards why this commandment, about reserving that level of intimacy, both physical and psychological/spiritual aspects of the relationship, is worth a commandment.
It is because it is so intimate to a relationship, that God treasures it.
And therefore to diminish it, diminishes something God gave us to treasure…..
Because it teaches something about our life, about our relationship with God…..
Let me explain that some..
Why is this so important to God?
While no one will doubt the physical aspects the relationship between a man and a woman, those acts are by no means just physical.
There is a spiritual/psychological aspect to them, something that uses that word that sends shivers down most men’s spines….there is something ….
“Intimate”
Something that takes all of our walls down, that leaves us and our spouse as one, relating to each other, caring for each other.
It is that level of emotional and spiritual intimacy that God desires us to have with Him. That’s why we heard Ephesians 5 tonight as well as chapter 2. That is why the Old Testament Books of Song of Solomon and Hosea talk of marital faithfulness and love as an example of God’s relationship with His people, and even the unfaithfulness of Hosea’s wife, as an example of Israel’s actions towards God.
A bitter betrayal, the deepest betrayal.
A depth of pain that goes beyond our ability to cope with…..
Yet a level of pain God has endured, as again and again He has picked Israel up from her wandering into idolatry…..
It’s hard to imagine God hurting as the couples I’ve had in my office have hurt. It’s hard to realize that you or I could hurt the Creator of the universe, that a congregation, that a people could so devastate God by betraying His love.
But we can… and we do…..
We fail to love Him with our entire heart, our soul, our mind, when we trust in our idols the way we are supposed to trust Him. Even when the idol we trust in is ourselves. When what we are proudest of, what we are in awe of, isn’t the God who created us, who created this planet.
If how we love our neighbor reveals how we love God, as the apostle John writes in 1 John, how much more does how we treasure our spouse, our faithfulness tell us about our relationship with God?
A Relationship to Cherish, to Guard, to Teach
Hear again Paul’s words from Ephesians 5…
25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.
If what we’ve been working through, that these 10 commandments actually are the Old Testament Beatitudes, the masterpiece of God that is how we, rescued from Satan are to live, then Jesus’s work to render us a “the glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or blemish, makes incredible sense.
It is what Hosea did for his wife, the very model of it. Even though her sins, like ours, are scarlet red. It is the depth of Christ’s desire for a relationship with us, the emotional intimacy, the being unified as one. Not sexually, but in ways that are just as deep.
He is faithful, even when we struggle. Even when we take the great blessing He has given us, this great example of marriage, that God considers it the model of our special relationship with Him, and we see it trashed around us, and sometimes, in thought or word and deed, we trash it ourselves. Or don’t speak up when we see it cheapened, and mocked.
God’s faithfulness extends even then, calling us back to our relationship with Him, healing us, restoring us, and yes, He can and has even restored the relationships, He can recreate us, revealing His masterpiece that is creating by uniting us to Jesus.
But it is there, where healing happens, where God ministers to us, Father, Son and Spirit. It is there were marriages find their healing as well, and the example of faithfulness and yeah – intimacy. It is there, in that relationship, that all relationships can find the peace that passes all understanding, that peace in which we find ourselves guarded and treasured by Jesus.
AMEN?
