Return to the Lord
Who Calls You Endlessly
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our Lord is relentless. He does not give up. He is
tireless in calling you to repentance. He wants to forgive
before judgment takes place. “Prepare to meet
your God,” Amos said tonight. But how? Prepare by repenting. When you repent, you meet a merciful
God. When you do not repent, when insist upon your own works, you meet a
merciless God who will judge you as you want to be judged. God doesn’t want
that; He knows how such judgment will turn out. He is a God of love, a God who
wants show mercy, a God who redeems and restores.
The Lord is calling His people, working to bring them back
to Him. And yet, over and over we hear these sad words: “You
did not return to me.” Amos records all that God did to call His
people back to Him in repentance. First, He says, He gave his people “cleanness of teeth.” Teeth are clean
when they have no food to dirty them, no food to get stuck between them. The
Lord provides our daily bread; when we turn away from Him, we deserve to lose
our daily bread. God takes it away—not in vengeance, but so that the people
remember Him and turn back to Him as the giver of all good gifts. “Yet you did not return to me…”
Next the Lord “withheld the rain”
from them. Throughout Israel’s
history, the people were tempted to worship and trust in Baal, the god of their
neighbors. Baal was believed to be the god of the sky, of lightning, and of rain. But a false god can produce and
provide nothing, and the true God withheld the rain so that they would know
that He is the one true God. “Yet you did not
return to me…”
So the Lord tries a third time, sending the
devastation of blight, mildew, and locust. When the Lord brought His people
into the Promised Land, He gave them a land with an abundance of everything. It
was a land flowing with milk and honey! Why leave the God who provides such good
gifts? So the Lord takes them away, that the people return to Him. “Yet you did not return to me…”
On and on it goes. He sends the nations to strike Israel with the
sword. He struck some of them down as He did at Sodom
and Gomorrah.
All of this He did out of love. And yet they did not return to Him. He loved
them relentlessly. How thick and dull and ignorant and unseeing the people are!
“What’s wrong with them?” we might ask. But that same thing is wrong with us. Paul
wrote to the Corinthians that these things in the Old Testament were written
for our learning, to instruct us, that we do not make the same mistakes. But have we learned?
Examine your life according to the Ten
Commandments. In fact, just look at the First. Do you truly fear, love, and trust in God above all
things? Do you fear the perils of this world more
than you believe He will deliver you from them? Do you
love the things of this world more than you love Him? Do you trust the things of this world more than Him? So often we
think our sin is inconsequential. But every sin is a turning away from God, a
breaking of the First Commandment. We, too, must repent. We, too, must return
to the Lord.
In his 95 Theses, Martin Luther wrote, “When
our Lord and Master Jesus said repent, he willed that the entire life of the
believer be one of repentance.” Repentance is not just a once in a
while thing. Your whole life must be a constant turning away from yourself; a
turning to God; looking to Him for our forgiveness, life, and salvation. He wants to give you everything you need.
That includes sending His Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ. Jesus took your death for you, in your place. The judgment of
God you deserve, the Father placed firmly on His Son. He gives you faith to look at the Son and
see your sin nailed to the cross. He gives you faith to look at the Son and see
your salvation. He gives you faith to look at the Son and see the forgiveness He died to give you.
He gives you faith to look at the
Son and “meet your God” and return to Him.
So return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and
merciful. He has redeemed you. He has restored you. He will raise you up. He
does not tire of calling you. He is your God. And you belong to Him. In the
name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The
peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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