Sermon Tone Analysis

Have you ever been lost?

I don’t mean what happens when you are trying to find your way through Highland’s Ranch, but I mean really lost?

I experienced it once when I was at Chaplain School.

We were doing land navigation and they gave us a map, that does not look like any map I had ever seen.

They gave us that and a compass and said good luck.

I knew what it was like to be lost.

Have you ever been lost?

It isn’t much fun.

But being lost physically is not only way to be lost is it?

I mean there are other ways to be lost.

What do you think?

What are some other ways to be lost?

Mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

And just like being lost physically these are not fun experiences.

They are scary, they leave us feeling isolated and alone.

Sometimes we can even feel hopeless.

Being lost is no fun.

Jeremiah speaks of a group of people who are lost.

They are the exiles from Israel.

That is the northern kingdom of Israel to be exact.

But to the stage set right for this story we need to go back in time.

Mt.

Sinai, do you know what important event took place at this mountain?

It was here that God made a covenant, a promise, a deal with Moses and the Children of Israel.

They had just left Egypt and they ended up here.

And at the foot of this mountain, God made a promise to them.

He said, “I will be your God.

And you will be my people.

This is how my people will live.”

And he gave them the ten commandments.

There was another part to this deal.

As long as the people lived by the commandments they would stay in the land that God was going to give them, but if they did not keep those commandments… They would have to leave the land.

Now jump almost a thousand years ahead.

The Children of Israel have now become two separate kingdoms.

The northern kingdom is Israel the southern kingdom is Judah.

And Neither has been doing a good job of keeping the commandments.

In fact they are worship other gods and doing all kinds of horrible things.

So the northern kingdom gets kicked out of the land.

The Assyrians come along.

You might know them better as the Ninevites from the story of Jonah.

They come in and remove the people from the northern kingdom and relocate them to different parts of their empire.

So now they live in different parts of the kingdom.

And a different peoples have been transferred by the Assyrians to their old home lands.

They are lost.

And it is not a good thing.

Their sin has brought about the judgment of God, and what happened is right and just.

But you know what.

God’s judgment is not his final word.

Not in this case.

No here the final word is a promise of restoration.

Listen to these beautiful words, “This is what the Lord says:  ‘Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations.

Make your praises heard, and say, “Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.”

See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth.

Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return.

They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back.

I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.’”

This is some of the most beautiful imagery and poetry in all of Scripture.

The names Jacob, Israel, Ephraim, those are all references to this group of people.

The pictures of level paths and beside streams of water are comforting easy travels.

And God as their father, says that even though they received his judgment, they did lose his great love for them.

In these beautiful words, our great God talks about welcoming back his people.

They don’t come find him, but he brings them back to himself.

They are words of grace, comfort, strength, and most importantly they are words of hope.

Now let’s make another jump in time.

This time let’s go about two thousand seven hundred years.

Today.

You and me, here and now.

What is the connection that we share with the people who are called Jacob, Israel an Ephraim in our reading?

We are sinners.

We too fail to keep God’s commandments.

And no matter how hard we try, we fail, we will fall short.

And like them we deserve God’s wrath.

But what happened?

We have been restored.

We are not separated from our God, but rather, he was welcomed us.

Now this is very bad grammar, but it is good imagery, so please bear with me.

Consider the welcome mat.

What word is printed on it?

Welcome.

This is a nice sign for guests and visitors.

But it can also have some theological significance.

Because it can remind us that God has welcomed us.

Though we were separated from him by our sin; though we deserve nothing but death and separation from him; our God loved us so very much that he did not want to be separate from us, and so he welcomed us, and you can even see that in this word “welcome.”

The first two letters spell a word.

What is it?

“we.”

We are the recipients.

We do not, have not, cannot initiate anything, but rather our God, does, can and has initated it.

Now the second and third letters also spell a word.

What is it?

“el.”

Now it is a word, not an English word, but it is the Hebrew word for “God.”

Now what word do the remaining letters spell?

“come.”

So in this word we see this statement, reminder.

To  We, El Comes.

Or To We El has Come.

Now how does this work?

Well allow me to take the analogy a little further.

In days past, when it was safe to keep such a thing out, what was most often stored under such a mat?