Here’s a twelve year old sermon that I’ve edited into a blog post. This one was on Hosea 6 & 7, and is a lot longer than the last sermon I revisited on these pages. It also required a lot more editing – I had to remove some especially dated references. Listen, it’s not that I’m too lazy to come up with something original – it’s rather that I don’t think I’ll ever preach this sermon again, so I’m putting it on the internet for posterity. Yes, that’s it.
I have a friend. Some of you will have a friend like this. He keeps making harmful decisions, because he’s…well, I don’t know why he does it. It’s not as bad now, thankfully, but back when we hung out it was crazy. It would be easier to understand if he wasn’t a Christian, but he is. He’s been a Christian since he was young, but he walks this fine line with his faith. It’s not that he’s not committed, or not sincere. To be honest, I just don’t know what it is.
He goes through up and downs, like most of us. Sometimes he’s passionate about God, sometimes he’s not. He knows his Bible. He knows it well, and he’s got a good grasp of theology.
But, well, it’s almost like he knows it, but he never lets the information make the journey from his head to his heart. It’s like he’s going through the motions a lot of the time, because he knows it’s what he should be doing, and thinking, and feeling, but it’s as though it’s not quite real for him. But again, he’s sincere. He knows who Jesus is, but he just doesn’t seem to be able to make the connection between that and living for God.
Take relationships, for example. He just makes bad choices when it comes to women. It’s not even that he goes out with non-Christians. He meets girls at church that are just as messed up as he is. In the two year period that I was closest to him, he had four girlfriends and none of them were good for him. It’s like these relationships seem to shut God out of his life. They never last, but I reckon that’s a good thing, because as damaging as these relationships are in the short term, I dread to think what he’d be like if he’d been going out with one of these girls for years rather than months.
He’s highly suggestible too. Easily swayed by outward appearances and advertising. Suckered in by any and every half-baked scheme; wasting his money on stuff that can’t help him. He knows that Christ alone offers satisfaction and health; he knows this. But like I said, he doesn’t know it. He was always showing me the stuff he’d bought. He was always showing me and telling me about his new toy and how it was the thing that he’d really been after – but he got through stuff pretty quickly. Some of my other friends did very well off him, waiting for him to get bored with his new purchase and then buying it off him on the cheap.
I remember one conversation we had outside Currys. We were waiting for a bus and he was talking to me about Jesus and God and stuff. He was saying all the right things, about how he’d just got out of one of those destructive relationships. He was telling me how he’d really drawn strength from his faith, and how he felt closer to God, and that he realised that God was all that he needed and the source of the hope that he’d been missing. He said that he needed to get that relationship back on track. But it was weird; he was saying all this, and I noticed that as he was talking his eyes were drifting, until it was obvious that he was looking elsewhere.
I followed his gaze to see that he was looking in the shop window, at a huge widescreen TV. There was no sound, but it was the adverts. He was there talking to me about God, but watching the adverts. That kind of sums him up really. Talks the talk, says the right things, and knows the right things, but is focused on something else. His mind is elsewhere. Talks about God, but watches the adverts.
It wouldn’t be so bad, but he really didn’t have a clue what he was like. He just didn’t get it. He knew something was wrong, but he didn’t understand what. He didn’t know that he was doing it to himself. I tried to tell him. Lots of people tried to tell him. I’m not the only one. He’s been very blessed, really, that God has sent a constant stream of people to try and show him and tell him that something’s got to change, but he never really makes the connection. Sometimes it gets close. Sometimes he says something that makes you think, “Wow, it’s finally sunk in,” but soon you realise that it was a moment of clarity and nothing else. Just part of the right language he knows, but isn’t sure what to do with.
Do you want to know his name? You might already know his name.
He goes by many names, but most of the time he’s simply called ‘Israel’. Sometimes Ephraim. Sometimes Judah. It’s all similar you know. One of his friends, a guy called Hosea, tried to make him see sense. Like I said, just one of many friends who say the same things, and it seems like he never listens.
Hosea said to him, “You’ve had four girlfriend in the past two years…” well, what Hosea actually said was, “You’ve had four kings in the past twenty years…” but it’s the same thing really. Hosea said, or rather God said through Hosea, “You’ve had four kings in the past twenty years – and each one of them was assassinated. You know what? Not one of them ever called out to me.”
What do you expect for Israel when he’s in those kind of relationships? And God said to him, “It’s not your ideas that are half-baked – it’s you! You’re like a half-baked cake. Mixed in with all the wrong ingredients and the final act, the act of turning back to Me, left undone.”
God said to him, “You invest your time and money and energy into these foreign powers, these idols, and they’re just robbing you. You’re paying tribute to foreign powers and smiling, unaware that you’re just draining yourself of your resources for no gain.”
God said to him “You’re like a bird that’s easily scared from branch to branch, flitting and flying here and there. Stupid, easily trapped and ensnared in something that’s no good for you.”
God said to him, “The worst thing is that you smile about it. You are totally unaware of what’s happening. You think that this is how it should be, how I want it to be! You just don’t seem to want to understand! Wake up and smell the coffee!”
That’s what Hosea used to tell him. He was much better at speaking to Israel than me.
Anyway, we drifted apart. I wasn’t too worried because, despite everything, he seemed to be one of those people that God had taken a special interest in, and seemed to be making a lot of effort for. I totally lost contact with him until very recently, when I bumped into him on a train – one of those chance encounters, you know. He looked really well. I didn’t recognise him at first. He spotted me. I said, “You look good.” He said, “Yeah, things are going well. I’ve changed a lot since you saw me last. Me and God, we’ve moved on to a new stage in our relationship. It’s great. It’s working very well.” He did seem to be different, in a good way, but I was a little concerned. I saw it in his eyes. I noticed the way his attention flicked to an attractive girl who entered the carriage and stayed just a little bit too long. I noticed that when we were waiting at a station there was a whole chunk of the conversation that he missed because he was mesmerised by an advertising billboard on the platform. On the whole he seemed much better, it’s just I was a little worried that the signs were still there, that he wouldn’t have to fall too far to totally slip back to where he was.
We reached his station and he got out. “Good to see you again, Israel,” I said. He smiled and said, “You too, James. But my name’s not Israel anymore. I changed it. My name is Church.”
Church. It seemed to suit him. But, well, you know. I hope that it lasts. I’d hate for a few years down the line his new friends to be saying exactly the same kind of things that Hosea used to say. I’d hate for it to be all as it was when I knew him, and that the only thing that had changed was that people were calling him Church instead of Israel.
