Emphasis Preaching Journal

Hosea 11:1-11
Former congressman from Oklahoma, J.C. Watts once said, “Compassion can’t be measured in dollars and cents. It does come with a price tag, but that price tag isn’t the amount of money spent. The price tag is love.”

I came across the story of the late Harland Sanders (of Kentucky Fried Chicken) showing compassion to a young child and her family. Sanders was on an airplane when the infant screamed and would not stop even though the mother and flight attendants tried every trick they could think of.

Finally, the Colonel asked if he could hold the baby. He gently rocked her to sleep. Later a passenger said, “We all appreciate what you did for us.”

Sanders replied, “I didn’t do it for us, I did it for the baby.”

In the passage for today, God addresses his people as if they were a little child. Even though they have been disobedient and judged, God will continue to demonstrate his kindness and compassion. “My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger.”

God’s compassion for his people was warm and embracing then and remains that way today. Dwight L. Moody once said, “"No matter how low down you are; no matter what your disposition has been; you may be low in your thoughts, words, and actions; you may be selfish; your heart may be overflowing with corruption and wickedness; yet Jesus will have compassion upon you. He will speak comforting words to you; not treat you coldly or spurn you, as perhaps those of earth would, but will speak tender words, and words of love and affection and kindness. Just come at once. He is a faithful friend - a friend that sticks closer than a brother."
Bill T.

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Hosea 11:1-11
The Exodus is the defining event in the Hebrew Bible. The people cry out to God and God delivers them. They grumble and rebel and die in the desert, but God still leads their descendants to the land that was promised. In the psalms and the prophets the people are reminded that it is God who made them a people, and not they themselves.

In this passage Hosea envisions a second Exodus. Speaking through the prophet God reminds the people how they were called out of Egypt. The relationship is one of loving parents and a troubled -- and troublesome -- child. Yet God’s steadfast love prevents the righteous punishment of their ultimate destruction. The prophet sees the people returning to God in that second Exodus, and a fulfilled relationship. This is a theme in the New Testament as well. For instance in the First Letter of Peter 2:10 we’re told that once we were no people (Hey, isn’t that what one of Hosea’s kids is called in chapter 1?) Now we are God’s people.
Frank R.

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Hosea 11:1-11
Theological divisions prevail as critics continue to judge the religious beliefs of other denominations. On Friday, May 31, 2019, at the National Cathedral in Bucharest, Romania, Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Daniel and Francis, the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church were sharing together in a worship service. Conservative right-wing Orthodox priests would not permit the two religious leaders to pray the Lord’s Prayer together. As a result, the pope prayed it first in Latin, followed by the patriarch saying it in Romanian. Later, Francis shared that from what he could see, most of the people at the service in the Orthodox cathedral prayed both times. Francis explained, “The people went beyond us leaders.”
Ron L.

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Colossians 3:1-11
We are said to have our lives hidden with Christ in God (v.3). Parents likewise hide their children from evil. This hiddenness is God’s way of protecting us from the world and from ourselves. This hiddenness of what a Christian is really like confuses the world, and in its anger the world often lashes out against Christians. Martin Luther nicely explained this dynamic:

The world does not understand the Christian life and has no word of praise for it; it is hostile to the faith and cannot tolerate that fact that you believe in Christ and refuse to join hands with it in love for worldly lusts. A hidden life indeed is the Christian’s... Be of good cheer he [Paul] would say for ye are dead to the worldly life. This life ye must renounce, but in so doing ye make a precious exchange. (Complete Sermons, Vol.4/1, pp.227-228)

Luther makes clear why our fallen world makes itself hard on Christians. The world resents our willingness to ignore what it wants us to think is valuable and important. But this hiddenness of the Christian life entails that we Christians are even paradoxes to ourselves — both hating ourselves and loving what is in us. French intellectual Blaise Pascal made that point so well:

The true and only virtue is therefore to hate ourselves, for our concupiscence makes us hateful, and to seek for a being really worthy of love in order to love him. But as we cannot love what is outside us, we must love a being who is within us but is not our own self... Now only the universal being is of this kind: the kingdom of God is within us, universal good is within us, and is both ourselves and not ourselves. (Pensées, 564)

What’s good and beautiful and holy in us really is God’s presence in us. You might say that God is hidden in you and me, but you only sense that when you are aware of your sin. It’s like Pascal says elsewhere:

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous. (Pensées, 562)

Yes, Christians are righteous people who know that on their own they are still sinners.
Mark E.

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Colossians 3:1-11
Paul continues his letter to the church at Colossi with a call to faithful behaviors, behaviors of character. As is often the case with Paul, he reminds us how we are not to behave – no fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry); anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language; and lying. More and more our culture seems to allow or expect everyone to express whatever they think and feel without a filter, with no inhibitions whatsoever. I wonder how this make God feel about God’s people and those who profess faith in God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Which behaviors do we practice that cause God pain? What messages is our culture giving that move us away from healthy and positive relationships with God and our neighbor? How can we be countercultural in our approach toward the world and one another? Paul calls us to be clothed as our new selves in Christ, to put on Christ. How will you do that today?
Bonnie B.

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Colossians 3:1-11
Doesn’t it make you feel great to know that there is now this one thing we can have faith in, that will never let us down? How hard it is sometimes to put all our faith in our God who we don’t see with our eyes when we see all the worldly problems every day on tv. It is not just government, but also, if we look, we can see evil in our own lives. We have problems with desire for money and with sexual temptations. We must even get rid of our anger over those who we feel are causing earthly problems. Why would you join the army if you had no anger for what others have done or could do? In our own country do we have some greed involving  the very wealthy who can do so many more things than we can?

We need to put on the new self and spend more time in prayer and scripture reading. We need to ask the Lord to change our hearts.

The church is the main place for most Christians to learn how our faith can be built in Christ.
Bob O.

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Luke 12:13-21
Leo Tolstoy once wrote a story called “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” It’s a profound story about a successful peasant farmer who was not satisfied with his lot. He wanted more of everything. One day he received an incredible offer. For 1000 rubles, he could buy all the land he could walk around in a day. The only catch in the deal was that he had to be back at his starting point by sundown.

Early the next morning he started out walking at a fast pace. By midday he was very tired, but he kept going, covering more and more ground. Well into the afternoon he realized that his greed had taken him far from the starting point. He quickened his pace and as the sun began to sink low in the sky, he began to run, knowing that if he did not make it back by sundown the opportunity to become an even bigger landholder would be lost.

As the sun began to sink below the horizon, he came within sight of the finish line. Gasping for breath, his heart pounding, he called upon every bit of strength left in his body and staggered across the line just before the sun disappeared. He immediately collapsed. In a few minutes he was dead.

Afterwards, his servants dug a grave. It was not much over six feet long and three feet wide. In the end, that was the land he needed.

I think you can see the similarity between this foolish peasant farmer and the rich man in the text for today. Paul Tripp once wrote, “Little kingdom living is an endless search for earthly treasure and unending focus on personal need; Grace calls you to a bigger kingdom.”
Bill T.

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Luke 12:13-21
By virtue of his high profile as a teacher (the title by which he is addressed in this story), wonder worker, and spiritual leader (never mind the fact that he was also the Son of God) Jesus could expect that people would single him out, much as a congressional representative in our day, to receive help with matters like wills. It is thought that two-thirds of an estate went to the oldest brothers and a third to the younger brothers, so it’s hard to say if this man is the younger or older brother, wanting more of the estate. Jesus refuses to get involved, stating that no one had appointed him arbitrator, but in Athens, at least, there were was some expectation that any citizen could be called on to be an arbitrator, and this may also have been true in the larger empire.

Indeed, Jesus is identified as judge in more than one place in the New Testament, like in Matthew 25. But what Jesus is judging is not how much money we’re entitled to, but our worthiness to enter into our reward. In the parable that follows this encounter Jesus paints a picture of a wise and prudent landowner willing to invest the money to build a larger barn to store abundant crops. Those crops would have rotted and gone to waste had they not been properly stored. But the wise fool in this parable failed to place as much value on the “riches in God” as he did with worldly riches.
Frank R.

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Luke 12:13-21
Alexander Smellie was a pastor in the Free Church of Scotland. In 1899 he published In the Hour of Silence: A Book of Daily Meditations for a Year. The devotional was so popular that it had to be reprinted eight times in twenty-four years. In a devotion for April 13, he began by discussing the meaning of a palimpsest. A palimpsest is a parchment from which the previous writing has been partially or completed erased and a new writing has been placed over it.  Then Smellie wrote in his devotional, “Every redeemed and renewed heart is just such a palimpsest.

Formerly the heart had written on it all wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings. But the old legend has been deleted by the grace of God; and now the heart bears this inscription, A newborn babe, a living stone, a spiritual house.” He then ended his devotional with these words, “I wonder whether my heart is among the palimpsests of the kingdom of God.” 
Ron L.