“Return to the Lord, Who Doesn’t Tire of Calling You” Amos 4.6–13 Lenten Mid 6 April ‘22

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word for our 6^th Lenten midweek service is taken from Amos 4:6-13, it’s entitled, “Return to the Lord, Who Does Not Tire of Calling You,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                “Prepare to meet your God.” Those words hit you like a sledgehammer. They come with the message that judgment is coming. It’s what you hear a movie villain say before he ends his victim’s life. But it’s no villain that speaks those words to you. Amos delivers the Word of the Lord who says, “Prepare to meet your God” (Amos 4:12). The Lord is no villain, but this word comes with a clear message. Judgment looms on the horizon. The tragedy is that it didn’t have to be this way. If only God’s people would listen and take to heart his Word, things would turn out so much differently. The Lord won’t sit back and allow us to go the path of destruction simply because we won’t listen. He is persistent in his seeking after us. The Lord longs to forgive you, so he is tireless in calling you to repentance.

3.                Amos chronicles five means by which the Lord calls his people to repentance. And five times his people don’t listen. Each time the Lord ends with the same phrase, “yet you did not return to me.” You can hear the exasperation in his voice. A jilted lover either gives in to heartbreak, makes a grand plan to make his life so enviable that the one who rejected him regrets having done so, or he sinks into depression. But not the Lord. He will not give up on you. He has been wronged, but instead of pouting, instead of plotting his just vengeance, he instead works to win back his people. He longs for his people to be forgiven and reunited with him that he will not stop.

4.                First, you hear him say, “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me” (Amos 4:6). Teeth are clean when they have no food to get stuck between them. While the Lord taking food from his people should get their attention so that they will repent, it’s also a reminder of the Lord’s provision. He graciously provides for all his people’s needs. When the people abandon him, it is just and right for them to lose the benefits that come from the Lord. Even more, his people should remember what a privilege and joy it is to have such a Lord. With the Lord, there is a bounty of his goodness. Apart from him there is an absence of that goodness—and that should naturally drive his people back to him. But even hunger doesn’t drive God’s people either to remember him or to repent.

5.                Because his people won’t listen, the Lord calls again. “I also withheld the rain from you . . . yet you did not return to me” (Amos 4:7, 8). Drought endangers crops and puts life itself in the balance. So again, the Lord is calling his people to remember how he supplies life. He doesn’t do it begrudgingly. It flows naturally from his love as he provides rain that his creation might drink from his goodness. But throughout Israel’s history, there was a constant temptation to trust in Baal. Baal was the false god of Israel’s neighbors. He was supposedly the god of the sky, of lightning, and of rain. If you were on Baal’s good side, then you were supposed to receive rain aplenty. The Lord isn’t shy to tell his people that if they want to trust in Baal, they should see just how much rain he provides. None. It’s insanity to trust in Baal, who is nothing more than a figment of the imagination. But . . . we do it all the time too. Our idols don’t go by the name of Baal. We bank our security not upon Baal’s rain, but on a bull market on Wall Street. And when our financial prospects go from bullish to bearish, we should be able to see the foolishness of these idols of ours. But sinners are nearsighted. We double-down on our idol even as the Lord is calling us to return to him, for in him alone is there life.

6.                Two calls didn’t work, so maybe his people will listen if the Lord calls them a third time. “I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me” (Amos 4:9). When God brought his people to the Promised Land, he told them that they would eat from vineyards that they didn’t plant. Such is the abundance that the Lord delivers. It is rich and nothing need be done to gain it. The Lord delights to provide for his people. Since they have forsaken him, the Lord tries to get his people with yet one more physical loss. Leaving him means leaving his good gifts. His people of old needed to learn this lesson, so do we. It isn’t blight and mildew that worries you, nor is it the grasshopper. It’s other natural disasters that prompt concern. When a tornado brings devastation, it’s not our place to figure out if God is mad with those who are displaced. It’s a call for us to repent. God is calling you to repentance knowing that apart from his care, something far worse would befall you.

7.                Still the Lord’s people won’t listen. The Lord so loves his people that he will not give up, so he tries a different tactic. He’ll remind them of his history of salvation, how he’s worked mightily with an outstretched arm to deliver them. Surely, then they’ll listen and recall how blessed it is to live under the Lord’s care. So, he says, “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me” (Amos 4:10). Remember everything the Lord did to Egypt that his people might be saved? Not only did he send the 10 plagues, but Pharaoh’s army—the young men with sword along with the horses—were swept away in the sea. All this that the people of the Lord might be delivered. There’s no doubting his love, his dedication, his salvation for his people. So, when their abandonment of the Lord causes those very acts of judgment to be visited upon them, certainly they’ll listen. They’ll remember that it’s good to live in the shadow of his grace. You remember, don’t you? So why do you return to slavery? Slavery to sin.

8.                Still, there’s no repentance, so the Lord utilizes a second historical reminder of how he’s acted for his people’s salvation. Maybe, this will finally be enough to get through the thick skulls of the Lord’s people. He says, “I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me” (Amos 4:11). Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown because of the depth of their evil. Their evil was so pervasive that when Abraham bartered with God to spare them, he couldn’t even find 10 righteous persons in Sodom to justify sparing it. He’s saying that’s now the same case with Amos’s contemporaries. And he calls us to repent as well, because it’s true among us also. What justification can we give for God to spare us? Are we righteous and pure? Or will you find quarreling among us? Are there evil thoughts that pit one believer against another? The Lord is justified not in sparing us but in condemning us. But he speaks of his people being a brand plucked out of the burning. The Lord works to pluck us out of disaster. Though we don’t deserve to be spared, the Lord does spare us, because that’s the kind of God he is. He delights to withhold just punishment. His fervent yearning is that you not receive the just reward of your sin, but grace upon grace. In spite of such grace being extended, the Lord says, “yet you did not return to me.”

9.                How could they be so thick-headed? Five times that struck directly at their physical needs and that recalled God’s actions in history for their salvation, each reminding them of God’s goodness and grace for which it’s well worth returning, and still they won’t return. What’s wrong with them? What’s wrong with us? How can we be so thick-headed? We pass off our sin as insignificant, but all sin is an abandonment of God. All sin leads him to his tireless call that we return to him and his goodness. But we continue to sin. We deserve to be judged. He gave us every chance. He didn’t tire to call us to repentance, but we have not given an ounce of energy to leave our sinful ways.

10.             As thick-headed as we are, the Lord is all the more acute in his actions to save us. Even when you tire of returning to the Lord, he doesn’t tire of calling you. So, judgment looms on the horizon, but it comes differently than you have a right to expect. The same tireless zeal of the Lord to call you will drive him to spare you the coming judgment. There is no undoing judgment for your sin. The only thing that can be done is to take the judgment away from you and place it upon another.

11.             Judgment looms on the horizon. It is now only nine days away. It is judgment for your sin. But, the judgment will not be inflicted out upon you. It will be visited upon the Lord himself. In one last effort to call you to return, the Lord takes your punishment and puts it on full display as he pours it out upon his Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. This one will be effective to bring you back home. Now, you will return. All because you see God for who he truly is as he hangs on a cross for you. How could it come to this? Because He Does Not Tire of Calling You, the Lord Will Not Rest Until He Has Delivered You. Nine more days until the judgment. Prepare to meet your God! Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.

 

 

“Return to the Lord, Who Doesn’t Change” Mal. 3.6–12 Lent Mid 5 March ‘22

 

1.                Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word for our 5^th Lenten Midweek service is taken from Malachi 3:6-12. It’s entitled, “Return to the Lord, Who Does Not Change,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                Did you hear how the Lord referred to you? It was right there in Mal 3:6. “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” He called all of us children. That’s rather humbling. We are accustomed to putting someone in his place by referring to him as a child. “It’s time to grow up and be a man!” “Stop being such a baby.” Or when was the last time you heard, “You’re such a child.”

3.                Being called a child was even more humiliating in the biblical world. A child was completely dependent. They couldn’t tend to themselves, much less make a meaningful contribution for the well-being of others. This is why the disciples are indignant when little children are being brought to Jesus. In their minds, Jesus shouldn’t be wasting his time on lowly children. Jesus says otherwise. He puts his hands on the children and blesses them. Jesus takes the world’s upside-down way of viewing children and turns it right-side up. Jesus goes even further and says that we are to receive his kingdom as a child.

4.                Jesus is teaching the same truth found throughout Scripture. We ever remain children. Throughout the Old Testament, God’s people are regularly called the children of Israel or the children of Jacob. In the New Testament, we are named as the children of God. We ever remain children because we ever remain dependent upon God. There is much that children—and that includes us—need. We need provision of food and clothing, house and home, all that we need to support this body and life. Remember the explanation of the First Article of the Creed in the Small Catechism. There you see the fatherly care of God as he gives you all his created gifts. Jesus teaches you to pray to God as “our Father” so that with all boldness and confidence you might call upon him as dear children call upon their own dear fathers. You ask much of him, including that he would supply your daily bread.

5.                The Father delights for you to be his child so that he might provide for all your needs. Among the needs that every child has are safety and stability, which are provided through rules. Children may complain about rules, but in the end every child desires rules. It provides safety as they know that there are boundaries. They can go this far and all will be fine and safe. The need for law to regulate our behavior is inherent in us being children.

6.                But children have a way of running from the very rules they crave. It happens in the home, at school, in society, and it happens among us, the children of God. Go back to Malachi 3:7 of our text: “From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’” You are just like your fathers who rebelled against God. His commandments are not a burden but a blessing. The Lord sets forth right and wrong for your benefit. His rules are not fickle. They are all grounded upon what is good for you. His rules resonate with his created order, an order that is all about life for you. But you respond as a child. “Rules are made to be broken.” “All those rules are such a killjoy.” So, you ignore the Lord’s statutes and do your own thing.

7.                Malachi delivers a specific word about how you rebel against God. Malachi proclaims the Word of the Lord: “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions” (Malachi 3:8). It seems ridiculous. Man robbing God? You must outwit or overpower someone in order to rob them. You can’t overpower God, and you certainly will not outwit him. So how in the world could you ever rob him?

8.                The Lord puts an exclamation mark on the impossibility of robbing God. He says, “I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 3:11). That means the Lord controls both the field that produces all your goods and the devourer who would destroy them. The only reason you have what is yours and the only reason it is not ravaged by disaster is because the Lord himself provides it and then shelters it. Yet we ignore that. In pride, we celebrate what we’ve earned, unwilling to acknowledge reality—namely, that the Lord provides and protects all we have.

9.                That is precisely how we rob God. When our lives and words don’t acknowledge his provision and protection, we rob him of the glory due his name. We pretend as if he had nothing to do with the goodness that overflows in our lives. But when grateful hearts acknowledge that all we have is a gift from God, then we respond accordingly. An appropriate response to God’s goodness is our financial contributions. Withholding your finances from the Lord communicates ingratitude or un-thankfulness. So, the Lord brings us back to Mal 3:8. “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.”

10.             What prompts us to withhold our tithes? What convinces us that we should minimize our financial contributions? Lack of gratitude. We withhold tithes because we are convinced that we can’t afford to give. We look at what we have, and we see a little that must be hoarded rather than seeing the truth. We have an abundance supplied by our Father for which we can’t help but give thanks, knowing that we have more than enough so that we can give. We minimize our contributions when we tell ourselves that the church has gotten more than its fair share from us already. It’s not what the church has or has not received. It’s what you have received from the Lord that drives the contribution. In thanksgiving for the wealth given you by God, contributions flow. In fact, Deuteronomy 8:18 says, “You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”

11.             Ponder anew what the Almighty has provided you. His provision is more than sufficient for this life. Jesus teaches you in the Sermon on the Mount that the Father causes the rain to fall upon both the righteous and the sinner. That is the provision that comes from the hand of a gracious God. Whether you are righteous and give thanks or you are sinful and ignore the giver of all good gifts, he still gives because that is the kind of God he is. He is your Father. So, he not only provides you with all that you need and more, but he also protects what you have.

12.             His provision is more than enough for the life to come as well. Both the righteous and the sinful enjoy the Lord’s good gifts in this life. But that is not enough for our Father. He would have you enjoy his goodness into eternity. So, the Father sent his only-begotten Son Jesus into the flesh. The Son enjoyed his Father’s goodness in this life and then it was ripped from him. He was stripped of family and friends, house and home, food and drink. He was even stripped of his clothes. And then life itself was taken from him. All so that you might enjoy the goodness of God into eternity. That you might live in confidence that Christ has won the goodness of his Father in its fullness for eternity. He rose from the dead. In his resurrection, you see the goodness of the Father that awaits you. You have reason for gratitude. Being a child of the Father is a good thing.

13.             Everybody else sees how great you have it as a child. “Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 3:12). When a child lives in the bounty of his or her Father’s home, the child can become blind to just how good they have it because they take it for granted. When overflowing blessing is the norm, we can lose sight of just how good we have it. Take a look at just how good you have it. Others can see it. They see the Lord’s provision, and they see that it doesn’t change. This is the immutability of God. He is who he is, and he does not change. Back to Mal 3:6, “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”

14.             You are the child of the Father whose goodness does not fade. His goodness is yours now. You will overflow with his goodness in eternity because of his Son, Jesus Christ. That will never change. You Are Blessed to Be a Child of One Who Does Not Change. Amen.