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Sermon on Hosea 5, revelation 5
Title: God- Untamed
Theme: God’s nature is untamed holiness.
Goal: to challenge believers to remember the nature of God as good, but untamed holiness.
Need: we often soften up the picture of God.
Introduction to the series: We often think of Christmas in its gift wrapped form.
We are going to look at some of the natural, organic images that help us understand the reality the real blood, dirt, sweat and humility that is Christmas
Introduction to the Sermon: story about the softening up of our picture of God.
1. God is untamed holiness.
a. Pictured in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
b. Pictured as a lion:
i.
Lion’s cannot be domesticated
ii.
Aslan as a picture of God: Good lion, but not tame.
c. Seen in his warnings to Israel
2. Christ is untamed holiness.
a. Seen in the judgement in Revelation
b.
His being slain makes him worthy to judge.
3. Holiness is impossible except that all history was transformed at the coming of Christ.
4. Untamed Holiness is what lives in us.
We can be holy.
Congregation:
Oh, look.
It must be Christmas time.
Now don’t get me wrong.
I really do like the decorations and the festivities of Christmas time.
But year after year after year it makes me gag thinking that we ring in the beginning of the Christmas season with 6 foot blow up candy canes at Walmart.
It must be Christmas again.
The way we celebrate Christmas almost parallels the food we eat around the holiday times.
It couldn’t have been too many years ago when people had to make all their own party treats.
I know the stories of a generation ago when the greatest treat on Christmas day was the orange your parents gave you.
Now our food is the processed stuff, full of preservatives, full of just fake stuff.
People are starting to buy differently with food now.
Now, one of the buzz words you hear and the phrases you see on everything is “organic.”
Nothing artificial is added.
Nothing fake about it.
Just real.
As our culture turns Christmas into a day full of extra stuff and even turns the manger scene into a neat little cozy place, perhaps we should try to have an organic Christmas together.
During advent we are going to be challenged to see Christmas in its “no added preservatives” state.
We are going to look at the down and dirty nature of Christ and his message.
And specifically this morning, we are going to look at God-untamed.
Follow along as I read from Hosea 5. The untamed holiness of God.
Let’s do a little role playing.
You be a curious child.
I will be your parent.
So Suzie, December 25 is Christmas every year.
Why?
Because that’s the day Jesus was born.
Why?
Because... he had to die to save us from our sins.
Why?
Because we all do bad things so Jesus had to die to fix that.
Why?
Because I said so, go clean your room.
No... really, think about that one.
If God is just a nice cozy God, why would he have to send his son into the world to die.
The very fact that we have a Christmas to celebrate ought to make us realize that our God is not a tame loveable cuddly god.
He is holy.
He is perfect goodness.
And perfect goodness can be pretty terrible.
In the story by C.S. Lewis, the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the children are being told about this lion who rules all of the land of Narnia.
His name is Aslan.
After all these wonderful things that are said about Aslan, the kids ask, “so he is a tame lion.”
Good, yes.
But he is not tame.
That description of God is so perfect and shows us the reason why we need to have a Christmas at all in the first place.
And why Christmas needs to be celebrated with the blood of Christ on it.
Its because of the holiness of God.
God is holy and good and perfect holiness completely eliminates anything that is not.
In the passage from Hosea we hear the unholiness of Israel.
The people that God had chosen to be holy have wandered far away from him.
Look at this. Verse 3-5 3 I know all about Ephraim;
Israel is not hidden from me.
Ephraim, you have now turned to prostitution;
Israel is corrupt.
4 “Their deeds do not permit them
to return to their God.
A spirit of prostitution is in their heart;
they do not acknowledge the Lord.
5 Israel’s arrogance testifies against them;
the Israelites, even Ephraim, stumble in their sin;
Judah also stumbles with them.
[1]
God is holy and his people are not.
The strongest way God shows himself in the passage is when he compares himself to a lion.
Verse 14 says, “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah.
I will tear them to pieces and go away.
I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them.
This is the God we serve.
And this is the reason that our celebration at Christmas can’t be just tiddy and nice.
God at his very nature is untamed.
Perhaps the word that comes to mind is ferocious.
In the animal world, tigers can be trained.
They can be taught to do shows at the circus.
But they can never be domesticated.
inside the lion is a ferocity that can’t be forgotten.
We can’t domesticate God and we shouldn’t domesticate Christmas.
At the basis of Christmas is one incredible tension.
The God of heaven and earth is loving and holy at the same time.
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