Sin is a loaded word. For those outside the faith, it’s a funny and dated religious term. For Christians, we repeat it so often that it loses its bite. Scripture reveals that sin is worse than we know. Jesus is so serious about it that he says, “If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.” What is it about sin that’s so fatal it would require Jesus to go to the cross?
This Lent we do a soul examination, studying all the ways God describes the complex of sin. Lawlessness, adultery, rebellion . . . The cancerous nature of sin means that we need to go deeper than surface confession. The problem is worse than we know, which makes our Savior greater than we can imagine.
Invocation
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who delivers us from all evil.
Invitation Prayer
Lord, you know the power of the evil foe. You endured his temptation in the wilderness for 40 days. Answer our prayer to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Keep us from the devil and his schemes. Guard us from the fiery arrows of satan. Grant us life by the power of our victorious King, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Word
Hosea 3:1
“The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again. She has had other lovers and has been unfaithful to you. But you must keep on loving her the way the Lord loves the people of Israel. This is true even though the Israelites worship other gods.’”
Meditation: The Way Back by Pastor Jeff Cloeter
Consider the traditional wedding vows:
“I, __________, in the presence of God and these witnesses, take you, __________, to be my wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death parts us, and I pledge you my faithfulness.”
When I meet with couples preparing to be married, I want to make sure they know what they’re signing up for. The vows give a picture of faithfulness that stays day in and day out. If you take these vows, you’re promising to love someone when you don’t like them. When you suffer insomnia as an infant is screaming for dinner at 3:00 a.m. When you lose a job. When one of you has cancer.
The Bible sometimes uses marriage language when it speaks of our relationship with God. Like marriage, our relationship with God is exclusive. It is marked by love, commitment, and trust. No prophet exemplified this “marriage with God” picture more than Hosea.
God told Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer. Even after they had children, she would leave home and chase after other lovers. It was a heart-breaking assignment for this prophet. Hosea’s marriage was like an object lesson for Israel. It was to be a metaphor picture for Yahweh’s relationship with his people. God was like Hosea. Israel was like the unfaithful Gomer. In Hosea we see God’s own heartbreak for his people. He loves them and longs for them, but they are like an unfaithful spouse that keeps leaving.
The final message from God in Hosea is “return.” “Israel, return to the Lord your God . . .” (Hos. 14:1) There is a pleading in God’s voice: Come back home. I’m still here. Even when you leave me, I never leave you.
How can there be a relationship after such blatant betrayal? The traditional wedding vows apply to God. He continues to love even in “sickness . . for worse . . . for poorer . . . until death.” Even in the fractured relationship with God, Jesus has made a way back home.
Be truthful about your unfaithfulness to God. But don’t stop there. Return to him. Don’t keep your distance. The cross of Jesus is the way back after love is betrayed.
Lord, I have wandered and strayed in many ways. Some are known to me, some are known only by you. Forgive me. Renew me. Refashion my heart to be faithful to you as you have been to me. Amen.
Sending
In the face of evil, may the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.