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Written by Pastor Darrell Cooper
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Sunday, 03 August 2008 15:54 |
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Romans 9:1-5
August 3, 2008 - Lindsborg Cov.
“Broken Hearts”
(A Heart For the Lost)
Sermon
This morning, I would like you to imagine for a few minutes that you are a parent. If you are a parent, then you won’t have any trouble imagining it! But let’s all pretend that we are parents. You have a son, whom you love with all of your heart. You absolutely adore him, and you would do anything it takes to care him. Like any good parent, you faithfully provide him with everything he could ever need to be safe, healthy, and happy. You diligently protect him from various threats and dangers, both real and imagined.
For example, when he was first born you went around the house, child-proofing everything. You put those little plugs into all the outlets. You put all the drugs out of reach and locked up all the chemicals. You did everything you could think of to protect your son from any danger.
You are also generous with your son. You lavish him with wonderful and occasionally even expensive gifts. You do all sorts of things to communicate love to your son, to make him feel safe and accepted and part of the family.
The problem is that your son is what Dr. Dobson would call a strong-willed child. Actually, that is a gross understatement. Your son is a little rebel. It seems he was that way almost from the very beginning - a very difficult child.
It seems that from the moment he learned to talk he became a chronic complainer. He seems to complain incessantly, about everything. He complains that you never give him the things he wants, and then on those rare occasions where you do come through for him, he complains that your gift just isn’t good enough.
Beyond the complaining, he is also terribly disobedient. He defies your authority at every turn. And then, when he suffers negative consequences for his rebellion, he blames you for his self-inflicted pain.
For example, if you say, “Now son, I don’t want you touching this pot on the stove. Just leave it alone. Stay away from the oven. In fact, why don’t you stay out of the kitchen altogether. Son. Son! No!” But he just isn’t listening and he reaches up and pull a pot of scalding hot water onto his head and chest, burning himself badly. He screams and cries and then blames you. “It is your fault! You should not have left that handle out where I could reach it!”
He simply will not listen to you. You warn him of the consequences for his disobedience, but he ignores your warnings and gets into constant trouble, both within the home and without - at school too. Sometimes the trouble is minor. Sometimes it is major.
When your son gets himself into a real jam, really deep and painful trouble, it scares him and he cries out to you for help. He says, “I am sorry, Mom.” Or, “I am sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean for this to happen. Please help me.” And when your son humbles himself in this way your heart just melts. Your heart goes out to your son and you rush to his side and you rescue him danger. And he is so grateful, for a few hours, or days. But it isn’t very long before his gratitude turns back to greed and he returns to his selfish ways and rebellious attitudes.
This is a cyclical pattern that develops in his life. He will not listen to you, follow your rules, or heed your warnings. So, he often gets himself in big trouble. When he sees no other way out, he cries out to you for help. Your heart goes out to him and you come rushing in to bail him out again. His gratitude never lasts long and soon he is right back to his old ways. This cycle repeats itself over and over as he grows up.
When he becomes a young teenager it gets even worse. He starts to hang out with the wrong crowd. I mean a really rotten bunch, a brood of worthless thugs, really nothing more than a ruthless gang of bloodthirsty criminals. You want nothing to do with them, and you tell him to stay away from them, but he simply will not. You are worried about the kind of influence they will have on your son. He obviously admires them and seeks to emulate their behavior and attitudes. He seems inexorably drawn to this gang and there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do about it. You warn, you forbid, you plead, you threaten, but he is determined that these will be his new friends.
Then, one day, you get a terrible phone call. Your son has been kid-napped, by his so-called “friends”. They send you a note demanding a ransom far higher than anything you can afford to pay. What are you going to do? That night you lie awake in your bed imagining all the terrible things that they might be doing to him and you wonder if his life really is in danger if you don’t satisfy their demands. You love your son. You would do anything to protect him from danger. Finally, you agree to comply with their demands.
The next day, you empty your bank account of your entire life-savings. But it is not nearly enough. So, you begin to sell your possessions - everything that is of any value at all you put up for sale. You even sell your house. But still, you do not have enough for the ransom.
You turn to your friends and family, borrowing money from anyone who has pity on you. You beg from strangers, call up old classmates, anyone you can think of that might be willing to help you. And still you fall short.
So, you set out seeking a loan. You secure the highest loan anyone is willing to float you, but you have to go to a loan shark to do it. You know that between his “business practices” and the outrageous interest rate, you will never be able to pay it all back, but you don’t care. The important thing is that your son is safe.
Finally, you have the amount demanded in exchange for your son’s life. You meet the gang at the pre-arranged rendezvous under the cover of darkness. You peer through the dark night to see the gang emerge and there, right in the middle, is your son! He is alive. As best you can tell he looks OK. Your hope rises quickly. You hand the bag of cash over to the leader of the gang and then he hands it to your son!
Your son opens the bag and examines the contents and then begins to laugh. He is laughing at you! He laughs and says, “Hey, Mom”, or “Hey, Dad, it is about time! This is the first time in my whole life you have ever given me what I really wanted. Now that I am rich I don’t need you anymore, so why don’t you just get lost. In fact, drop dead. I don’t care, as long as you leave me alone! Don’t try to follow me. Don’t try to contact me. Just forget about me and leave me alone. If you don’t, you will be sorry. I will make your life miserable, and I will take it out on the rest of your children, my brothers and sisters. Good bye.” With that, he and his friends begin to laugh and they turn and melt into the darkness. He spurns your attempt at a reunion and runs off to live a life of crime with the very ones who kid-napped him and extorted money from you.
True to his word, he begins to harass and torment your other children. At first, he does minor things like vandalize their property. But then he makes threatening phone calls and even begins to attack them when they least expect it.
What do you do? You still love your son. That has not changed. Your heart aches to see him again, to hold him, to tell him that you love him and want him back. So you try to call him on the phone. He will not answer, and he ignores the recorded messages you leave for him. Eventually he simply changes his phone number.
So, you try writing him letters. But he never responds to a single one. He simply moves away and leaves no forwarding address.
You get some tips on where he might be, so you decide to try to make contact again. You know he will not talk to you, but perhaps he will listen to your friends. Maybe with a mediator there can be some hope for reconciliation. But he will not listen to them either. At first he simply rebuffs their advances, but then he begins to attack them too. Finally, he beats one of your friends so badly he leaves them for dead.
What are you going to do? Your son is now a career criminal and continues to live a lifestyle of active rebellion against you and rejection of all authority in general. You are absolutely devastated. It is not so much that your son broke the law, but more that he broke your heart. He has broken your heart over and over and over, and he keeps on breaking it.
The gift you offer him is your love, your relationship, your very self. But he will have none of it. You would gladly lay down your life for him if it would save him and turn him away from his path of self-destruction. You find yourself wishing that his problem were physical. If only he needed a mere heart transplant to survive. You would gladly donate your heart, would rip it right out of your own chest and hand it to him if it would save your son. But, of course, that won’t save him. It seems that nothing will. You have sacrificed everything that is precious to you in this world, surrendered every valuable possession you own and many that you do not, and you gave it all over in order to rescue your son from danger and certain death. But your son rejected your gift and spurned your offer of reconciliation. The bottom line is that you love your son and your son seems to hate you.
That is, I think, a little bit of how God must feel when His children reject His offer of salvation. We see this in our passage today, Romans 9:1-5. We see here that God dearly loves His children with all His heart. In this case, His children are Israel.
Like any good parent, God faithfully provides the children of Israel with everything they could ever need to be safe, healthy, and happy. He delivered them from bondage in Egypt. He miraculously provided for their needs every day for 40 years in the wilderness. He gave them a rich land, already fully developed.
He also diligently protected them from various threats and dangers. He promised to drive the pagan inhabitants out of their promised land. And, although Israel was smaller and weaker than any one of their enemies, let alone all of them put together, God made Israel an invincible army, striking terror into the hearts of all their enemies.
God also lavished Israel with wonderful gifts. He gave them lots of children. He gave them abundant harvests. He made them wealthy and gave them a strong economy. He did everything He could to show them His love and to make them feel safe and secure and accepted as part of His family.
But Israel was a strong-willed child. They were a problem almost from the start.
For example, they became chronic complainers. When they were enslaved in Egypt, they cried out to God for deliverance from their bondage. When God did finally send them a deliverer, they didn’t want to follow him. When they finally did follow him, they accused God of taking them into the wilderness to die. In fact, on more than one occasion they tried to go back to Egypt. It seems that Israel preferred bondage in Egypt to freedom with YHWH.
They complained incessantly. Israel complained that God was not giving them what they wanted, and then, when He did, they complained that it wasn’t good enough. For example, they complained that they didn’t have any water. So, on more than one occasion, God miraculously provided water for them. Then they complained that their water supply was no good. It was bitter. So, God miraculously made it sweet.
They complained that they didn’t have any bread to eat. So, God miraculously provided bread. Bread literally rained down out of Heaven every day for forty straight years! But then they complained that all they had to eat was bread. So, God miraculously provided meat for them to eat as well.
But Israel’s sinful heart attitude went beyond complaining. They were defiant an disobedient as well. God warned Israel of the consequences for disobedience, but Israel ignored God’s warnings and got into constant trouble. God sent dozens of prophets for hundreds of years, messengers who rebuked Israel for their idolatry and called the people to repent and return to God before it was too late. But Israel ignored and rejected the prophets whom God sent. They imprisoned, tortured, and eve killed some of God’s messengers.
But when Israel got into really deep and painful trouble, they began to cry out to God for help. They said, “Oh God, we have sinned. We are so sorry! We didn’t mean for this to happen. Please help us!” When God saw His children humble themselves this way, His heart just melted within Him. His heart went out to His children and He rushed to their aid. He sent judges to rescue them from their trouble.
And Israel was thankful for God’s help - for a few weeks or months, sometimes years. But it was never very long before their gratitude turned once again to greed and they returned to their selfish ways and went right back to their rebellious attitudes and lifestyle. And this pattern cycled over and over again throughout the history of God’s people.
Finally, Israel was so ensnared by sin and wickedness that they were cut off from relationship with God altogether and the Old Testament sacrificial system was not sufficient to restore fellowship. Their sin demanded their death.
But God still loved His children, Israel. He did not want them to die, even if they did deserve it. So God the Father sent God the Son to earth to become one of His own children. The Creator became a creature in order to bring the rest of His creatures back into relationship with their Creator. Jesus willingly laid down His life at the cross to purchase Israel’s freedom. His blood paid Israel’s ransom, if you will, a price Israel could never have paid themselves. God the Father gave up His one and only Son to redeem Israel, and God the Son surrendered His one and only life to return Israel to the Father.
And how did Israel respond? Well, once Israel was liberated from their bondage, they spurned God’s attempt at a reunion and ran off to live a life of sin, serving the very one who kid-napped them and extorted blood from God the Son. Israel rejected God’s love and offer of salvation. In what is, I think, one of the greatest and saddest ironies of history, Israel rejected the very Messiah they had been waiting for for 2,000 years. In fact, they murdered their own Messiah.
Then, when Jesus was raised back from the dead, many people, both Jew and Gentile, placed their faith in Him as their Lord and Savior. God adopted them into His family as His own children. So, Israel began to harass and persecute these new children of God. They had the Christians imprisoned, tortured, and in some cases, even killed.
God did not give up though. He still wanted to make contact with His people. So, He began to write letters, we know them as the New Testament epistles, pleading with them to come back to Him and embrace their Messiah, but Israel rejected His letters and their message.
So, God began to send some of His friends as messengers, mediators to offer them hope of reconciliation. He sent evangelists and apostles as ambassadors, explaining how the Old Testament points to Jesus as their Messiah. But Israel closed their ears to them.
The gift God offered Israel was His love, His relationship, His very self. But Israel would have none of it. God was absolutely devastated. It is not so much that Israel broke God’ law, but more that Israel broke His heart. Israel broke His heart over and over and over, and she continues to break it to this day. God spent 2,000 years making plans to redeem His people. He spent every last resource He had, even sacrificing His one and only Son in order to rescue Israel, but Israel just took His gift and threw it all away. The bottom line was that God loved Israel, and Israel seemed to hate God.
And so we see, in this passage in Romans, a glimpse of the broken heart of God, reflected in Paul’s heart. Listen to Paul’s words in the first two verses. He says, “I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” (Romans 9:1-2) Why? Paul’s heart is broken over the rebellion of His own people, the nation of Israel. They have rejected their only hope, murdered their own Messiah and still they refuse to acknowledge the truth and come back to God. Paul says he this gives him great sorrow and unceasing anguish.
But then Paul says something I think is simply astonishing. We just finished studying Romans chapter eight. In that chapter Paul shares with us what seems to be one of the greatest joys of his life. It is his knowledge, his conviction that nothing, absolutely nothing could ever separate him from his relationship with God.
These are his words: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)
This is a source of great encouragement and hope for Paul. He rejoices that there is nothing powerful enough to ever separate him from God. His relationship is secure. And then, in the very next chapter, Paul says that he is willing to give it all up. He is willing to sacrifice that which he holds most precious if it would only mean salvation for his people Israel. These are his words:
“For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel.” (Romans 9:3-4a) This is absolutely astonishing! Paul is saying that he would be willing to trade places with Israel. He was willing to be cut off from God forever in Hell if it would secure the salvation of his people. That, I submit to you, is the heart of God for the lost.
God’s heart is totally broken over the unrepentant lost. He weeps over them and He wants us to weep over them too. So, the application today is very simple. Do you know anyone, do you know any unbeliever, whether an individual or a group of people, with whom you would be willing to trade places? Could you say the same thing Paul did? Would you be willing to be cut off from God forever, to be damned to Hell for a Christ-less eternity, so that this person or group of people would be saved?
I am not there yet. I simply cannot say that. I would not be willing to sacrifice my relationship with God for someone else. Would you? Perhaps you would. That is the heart of God for the lost.
So, if not, what are you willing to do to see them saved? Are you willing to talk to them? Are you willing to tell them about who Jesus is, explain what He did for us, and describe what He means to you? Maybe.
If not, are you willing to invite them to church or maybe to ALPHA so they can hear the gospel message from someone else? Perhaps. Are you willing to serve them and minister to their physical and emotional needs, providing them a tangible demonstration of God’s great love and concern for them? Are you at least willing to pray for them? Do you even know any unbelievers? Do you have any significant relationships with people who do not yet know and follow Jesus?
I am not asking these questions in order lay a big guilt trip on anyone. I am not trying to manipulate any of us in any way. I ask these questions so we can seek the heart of our Father, so we can pursue Him and draw near to Him. Will you pray with me and ask God to give us His heart for the lost, to cause us to see people the way He sees them, to break our hearts with the things that break His?
Prayer
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Last Updated on Sunday, 03 August 2008 15:55 |
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