Tough Love

Recap:

Week 1: we read about God’s creation of the world and Adam and Eve’s job description. They were to be image bearers of God. Representing him in the world.

In Eden, they serve and keep the garden. Cultivating it and helping it flourish.

But rather than representing God, they decided they wanted to be God. As a result they were exiled from the garden.

Week 2: God’s Big Promise. He is going to build a nation (culture, values, laws) through a childless man named Abraham that will bless the world.

Week 3: Egypt - A Nation is born! And subsequently rescued from slavery to go back home.

Week 4: Law- We get a new culture. Transforming Egyptian slaves into an Israelite nation.

Week 5: Homeland: Under Joshua’s leadership, Israel returns to the land that Abraham and his family had left hundreds of years earlier. This land was theirs to be a blessing and to remind them of a loving father. But if the land becomes an idol, God would remove them from it. Because God was after their hearts – not their real estate.

Week 6: In week 6 we talk about a place to worship. A tabernacle. It was where God and man could meet. He is creating access while maintaining his holiness.

Week 7: The golden era. Blessed to be a blessing (Just like God promised Abraham!)

Today we come to Week 8: Tough Love.

Intro: Last week we read about how David and Solomon wrote beautiful Psalms during their reign. Today we open with this Psalm.

English Standard Version Psalm 137

137 By the waters of Babylon,

there we sat down and wept,

when we remembered Zion.

2  On the willows there

we hung up our lyres.

3  For there our captors

required of us songs,

and our tormentors, mirth, saying,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

4  How shall we sing the LORD’s song

in a foreign land?

What has happened? Last week Israel was at the top of their game! They were world leaders. Incredibly powerful, successful, flourishing, and vibrant.

Today they are in exile in Babylon. Kicked out of their homeland.

English Standard Version (Chapter 36)

22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God

Exalting Jesus in Ezekiel God’s Glory and Discipline (Ezekiel 1:1–28)

God will not tolerate the sin of His people, but it is also true that He will not abandon them. The gospel reminds us why: God will not leave us because He left His Son; God will not abandon us because He abandoned His Son; God will not forsake us because He forsook His Son; and God will not condemn us because He condemned His Son. Even in the midst of the worst consequences due to our sin, God still offers a word of hope and restoration

How did Israel profane God’s name?

what does vindicate mean?

Exalting Jesus in Ezekiel (God’s Discipline of His Children Is Always a Means of Grace)

I will keep My eyes on them for their good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not demolish them; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am Yahweh. They will be My people, and I will be their God because they will return to Me with all their heart. (Jeremiah 24. 6–7)