In his latest blockbuster adventure, the archeologist, Indiana Jones, finds himself searching for a crystal skull so that he can return it to its resting place. As he fights communists and braves the elements, he fulfills a mission over five hundred years in the making. You see, the crystal skull had been taken from its resting place by Spanish Conquistadors and it needed to be returned. And Indiana Jones and his group of friends and companions took it upon themselves to return it.
It is interesting that a blockbuster about an archeologist who is known more as a grave robber than anything else, as a collector of antiquities, has him trying not to get something but to return something. It is also interesting that the word return shows up so prominently in the movie. Of course the movie is about the return of an action hero who hasn’t been on the screen for 18 years. But Indy’s mission to return something to its proper place is a new kind of mission for him, and an important mission for each of us.
You see, we all have in us a need to return to a place we don’t really know. We all are called to return to right relationship with God, though we have never known that right relationship. And yet we were created to be in that right relationship. We were created to be God’s people, and even though we might have strayed away from that call on our lives, God is calling for us to return to that right relationship. So, that’s right, we’ve got the same call on our lives that Indiana Jones had in his blockbuster movie, “Return”. But instead of returning a nick-knack to its place of origin, we are called to return our very lives to the God who created us.
I. God’s Ambassadors
Throughout the Old Testament, there is a constant call for the people of Israel to return to God, to return to his plan for them, to return to his purpose for their lives. We see that call illustrated in today’s second scripture, found in Hosea. “Come, let us return to the Lord,” it calls! “He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. He will restore us, that we may live in his presence.”
To understand this scripture, to understand what God is calling his people to, we need to understand the pattern that the people of Israel seemed to fall into. Looking back at the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 12, we are told of God’s covenant with Abraham. We are told that God will make Abraham into a great nation. And we are told that God will bless Abraham and his descendants. But we are also told that Abraham and his descendants are called to be a blessing to those around them. This is the center of the people of Israel’s identity. It is who they are. They are a people blessed by God so that they can be a blessing to the nations around them. As you look at the first 12 chapters of Genesis, you see that God had created the world, created a good world, and it had been corrupted by sin. Because of the corruption, God was calling for the people of the world to return to right relationship with him, but instead the people were moving farther and farther away from God, falling more and more into their own depravity. Then God tried destroying the world in a flood and starting over, but this didn’t work. And so God decided to infect the world with his goodness in a different way. He decided to take Abraham and make him into a great nation. He decided to take this nation of his followers and use them to bring blessings to the world around them. They would be God’s ambassadors to a world that didn’t know him. “I will make your name great, I will bless you and you will be a blessing.”
And yet the ambassadors for God weren’t interested in being a blessing to the world around them. They were too interested in their own lives and what they could get from God. And if they thought that God wasn’t going to give them what they wanted in this world, then they’d turn wherever they could to get it. And so we see a continuing struggle throughout the Old Testament where God is trying to get his people into right relationship with him so they can begin to share that relationship with those around them.
II. Israel’s Purpose
You see, it’s not just that God wanted a relationship with Israel. It’s that God had a purpose for his people. He had a plan and he was relying on them to carry it out. But they spent most of their lives focused on themselves and not interested in God’s plan at all. Sure they wanted to be blessed, but they had no desire to be a blessing. Sure they wanted God’s favor, but they didn’t feel that they should share that favor with their neighbors. The big struggle that God had with the people of Israel was that he wanted them to fulfill a purpose for him and they just wanted him to bless them and nothing else. The people of Israel had a mentality of “what’s in it for me” and when they thought that God wasn’t delivering for them the way they wanted, they turned away from him and looked for other things that might deliver better. Sometimes these other things were other false gods and idols. At other times these other things were foreign kings who they felt they could rely on for protection. And still other times they would rely on themselves instead of anybody else, because they were all they had.
But in Hosea, and throughout the Old Testament, God is calling for them to return to him. He is calling for them to return to their relationship with him. He is calling for them to return to their purpose. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.” God wants them to acknowledge him, but more than that he wants them to live lives of mercy, to be about the purpose that he has planned for them.
III. Our Purpose
You see, I believe the same is true about us. I think that when we look at the people of Israel in the Old Testament, we will notice that we sometimes find ourselves in the same predicament that they were in. And we find ourselves struggling with the same things they were struggling with. Oh, we might not be worshipping at Asherah Poles or the false god, Baal, but we are allowing ourselves to get away from the purpose that God has for us.
God sent his son, Jesus, to save us. He sent him to bring us into right relationship with God because we are unable to do this ourselves. God sent Jesus to bless us with eternal and abundant life. But many of us seem to think that this is the fullness of the gospel. Many of us seem to think that once we’ve accepted Jesus’ salvation, our job is done. And yet we understand that our purpose is the same purpose that God made known to Abraham so many years ago. We are blessed by God so that we can be a blessing to those around us. We are called to be God’s ambassadors to a world that so desperately needs him.
Our purpose isn’t just to get to heaven. Our purpose isn’t just to survive this world and celebrate eternally in the next. These are things that we get to do, but they aren’t our purpose. God has a purpose for us and we are called to live in it. This means that when we are just focusing on ourselves we are not being about what God has called us to be. This means that when we are caught up in our own world, we are missing out on the plans that God has for us.
I believe that God is saying the same thing to the Church today that Hosea said to the people of Israel in his day. God is calling for the Church today to “return.” God wants us to be about more than just ourselves. God wants us to be about mercy. God wants us to move past just worshiping and sacrificing and instead he wants us to be his ambassadors to the world around us, sharing his truth and his love with those around us. God has blessed his Church. He has given us much. But he doesn’t want the story to end there. He is calling us to be a blessing. He is calling for us to return to our purpose. Amen.
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