Breaking the Insanity of Sinful Man

His disciples leave everything
-or-
Breaking the insanity of sinful man
Mark 1:16-20
Impact march 2


16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.Mk 1:16-20

Hetty Green
Let me tell you the story of Hetty Green. (hand out picture of her.)
Hetty Green was the richest woman in the world. At the time that she lived, about a hundred years ago, so accumulated a fortune of over $200 million. A hundred years ago that was an insanely large amount of money.
She was not a very nice lady. She was called the “witch of wall street”, being a ruthless business woman. But that is not what is most shocking about her. Most shocking is what she did with her money. Nothing. She never spent a dime of it. Here she was, sitting on more money than she could ever spend, and she lived in a small rented room, one that you would not stay in for a night. She would find the cheapest, shabbiest places, and rent a room. She had only two sets of clothes, both black, and would wear them until they were in tatters. She would not wash them unless absolutely needed, and even then she would instruct the cleaners to wash only the part that was dirty. She lived almost completely on small pies that were sold on the street for 15 cents. She never used hot water or turned on the heat. She even refused to pay rent for an office for her business, and would do her work out of the banks where she stored her money.
Worst of all, her insanity effected not just her. Her son, when he was little, was hurt in a sledding accident. His leg was badly injured, but she refused to take him to the hospital. She dressed him in rags, and disguised herself, and tried to get him free charity care at the hospital. When that didn’t work, she took him home and tried to care for him herself. Eventually, his leg became infected and had to be amputated. Doctors said it could have easily been saved if she had simply paid for the doctor.
Hetty Green was indeed a sick woman. What drove her to do what she did? No one knows for sure. Some say she was afraid that others would steal her money, so she tried to convince everyone that she was really poor. Others thought that she was just simply insane, out of touch with reality, not realizing she could never spend all her money. One thing I can say for sure about Hetty. You are just like her.


Refusing to live
You, like Hetty, refuse to take what is so available to you. In a sense, Hetty never really lived. She just worked, and worried, and carried out an existence we would wish on no one, all along she had the resources to really live. You are just like that. I look around at you and I see Hetty Greens, and it breaks my heart. You have the resources to really live, you have treasure beyond anything you can ever understand, more than you could ever spend, and you go on with your own dirty set of clothes, eating the cheapest food you can find, scared to death you will lose the little bit you have.
You right now are being called to really live.
Do you understand that? The fact that you are here, that is evidence that God is calling you to really live, maybe for the first time.
What are you living for?
Are you really ok with living the same, ordinary, empty life that everyone else lives? Do you really think it will be different for you? Do you think that somehow, for you, you will find out the secret to be happy, you will finally get what everyone else is looking for but never finds? You will be one exception?
Sure, there are many who look happy and pretend to be ok. But you know as well as I do that the truth is sometimes we do the same, and inside we know something is missing, something is not right.

Look, I want to appeal to you, please consider- aren’t you sick of the fake, empty, half living that you have been doing? Are you not sick of 15 cent pies and the same two sets of shabby clothes?
Look at her picture. Look at Hetty Green. Is that you? Aren’t you tired of it?

I wonder if the disciples were tired of it when Jesus called to them. I don’t know. They are just going about their daily work, their normal lives. Did they often think of what was missing. They weren’t out partying, or stealing, or anything like that, but they were not living for what they were created. They were not doing what they were designed to do. We are all created to do more than just survive, to just settle for what this world can give us. We were created for more.
For some reason, on this day it got through to the disciples-

16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.Mk 1:16-20

They leave everything. In an instant, in one call, at one moment. They wake up, they see that they are to live for more- and everything changes.


Breaking through the insanity
But like Hetty, we are trapped in insanity. I can stand here today and give the best message of my life, and you still won’t wake up to the truth. You will not answer that call, unless God wakes you up.
Do you know how he wakes you up?
It is going to have to be a powerful call.
We are so cynical, we need great power to awaken us. We are so ready to dismiss any chance of hope. This can’t work for us. There is no hope for me. No one will show us any good.
Jesus calls, He screams to us, but what do we think of his words? He even appeals to that longing in us, that deep, empty feeling, that knowledge that we are not at peace with God, and something is not right.

“Is anyone thirsty?”, he cries out. “let him come to me…” yet the crowds do not flock to him. Many want him dead for what he says.
Insanity.

Insanity explained
Listen, is why I say we are insane-
Everything that you do, you do it for your happiness. That is not the insane part. Everything that everyone does, they do because they think that it will make them happy. At first we might think that this is not true, people do all kinds of painful and difficult things, don’t they? But I am suggesting that the reason they do it is because if they didn’t, they would not be as happy as if they did it. So in everything, our motive is our happiness.
Got it? (any questions?)
We are motivated, and we are built this way- to do what will make us most happy.
That is not evil, or a problem. The problem comes in when we examine what we believe will make us most happy. And here is where we get into trouble. Because God is calling to us, and telling us that He is what will make us most happy. But- now, here is the insanity- we don’t believe He will actually be able to do what he says. We think- consider this, it is true- we really think that the things that are made are better than the maker. We really think that we can figure out how to satisfy ourselves better than our maker can. He doesn’t know, we think, how to give us what we need. We are better off without Him. The source of truth is a liar, the source of beauty will give us ugliness, the perfect one will give us defective goods. This is insanity.


Hosea

God has to break through our insanity.
How?
The answer to how is in the book of Hosea.
Hosea is written to a people who are living in insanity. Like Hetty, like you and me, they are living in emptiness, satisfying themselves with 15 cent pies. Turning away from all the good that is offered them.
It is a book written by a man named Hosea, a prophet, who God sends to talk to a people called the Jews. (if you are familiar with the book, just think about it as for the first time.) Hosea brings a message to the Israelites from God.
The Jews are running away from God. God is calling them, and they are running away. In their insanity, they think that they have found something better than God. God has throughout their history given them good things, and they have over and over again run away from Him.


Running from the one who gives good things
But you wouldn’t do that, right? If God gave you good things, you wouldn’t run away. The problem is that God doesn’t give you good things, right?
No. You are the same. God gives you good things, and you run away from the one who gives you good things!

16 In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. 17 Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Ac 14:16-17

God has, for all people at all times, satisfied hearts. And they have run away from the one who is raining blessings on their heads. They have run away from the one who gives food and gladness. And so do you. That is insanity my friends.

And God has strong words for them about all of this. The book opens with a very shocking command to Hosea. Hosea is commanded to marry a prostitute.

2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” 3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
Ho 1:2-3

Why? You see what God is saying. He is saying that he feels like a husband who is abandoned. He has given good things to his wife, Israel, and she is not faithful. And he wants to paint this picture for them, and Hosea , as His prophet, shows the people what they have done. He is saying “Hosea, I want you to feel what I feel. I want you to understand, and communicate to the people what I feel.”
Can you imagine, God feels like you are an unfaithful bride. This is his message to the Jews. He has blessed them, and committed to them, promised them he would love them and deliver them and provide for them, and they are running away from the blessings.


Crediting our evil with the good things
But it is worse than that.
Not only are the Jews running away from the one who blesses them, they think that their running away is the reason they are doing so good. They credit their sin and rebellion with their blessings!

5 For their mother has played the whore;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
Ho 2:5

What she is saying is that her lovers, that is, the things she is turning to to be satisfied, they have given her all the blessings she has.
What were they doing? They had set up other gods. Statues in their fields to bless the crops. Temples in their towns to keep enemies away. And they thanked these false gods for protecting them and giving them food.
This is just like us, and it is scandalous. God is the one who gives you every good thing you have, every blessings, every smile, the glad hearts and full stomachs you have. And we thank our rebellion. We run away from God, we do what he says not to do, give him no credit for anything at all, and then think that our happiness is the result of our sin. It is like being really good at a sport, and thinking “wow, look at me, look at the attention and benefits I get…” and not realizing God has given you that ability. Or it is like partying with friends, and enjoying them, and then ignoring the fact that they are given to you by God, and you are misusing them and sinning with them. Or like running after the pleasures of the world, and enjoying them, and saying “ah, that’s so wonderful, all that this sin gets me” and forgetting that it is God who blesses you with a body and senses that function that makes it possible for you to enjoy anything to begin with. And He gives you these blessings so that you can see His goodness, and to point you to Him. But, the insanity is we fall in love with the blessings, and not the blesser. It is like a husband who falls so in love with his wife’s cooking and affection that he loves it more than her. It is like having a friend who loves what you get them more than they like you. It is evil, and it is insane.



God intervenes
So how will God stop this insanity?

Blocking the paths

6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
Ho 2:6

The first thing he does is he blocks the paths to what we want. Perhaps not completely. But he makes it difficult for us to get to these things. The pleasures are shaken up a bit. Access is cut, or made more difficult. He is trying to show us that HE is the source, and that if we fall in love with the blessings, and not the blesser, we will end up heartbroken.
You may have experienced this mercy of God. In your rebellion and running away, you may have seen some of the things you set your heart on taken away.
But this does not do anything. This does not wake us up. It usually just makes us mad at God. It makes us more willing to run away from him and try and be satisfied in other things. How dare he take away what is most precious?
It is going to take more than this to wake us up from our insanity.
What will it be? Will he have to kill forever what we want? Will he have to punish us harshly?


Alluring His Bride
Amazingly, God’s response to our failure to answer his call, his response to our preferring 15 cent pies to his greatness, is not to punish us.

14 “ Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15 And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
16 “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. 18 And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
Ho 2:14-20


He will have to teach us that what we have wanted all along is not the things, but the giver of the things. That they were only hints, that he is the real desire. And he does this with a powerful display of his love. We have judged God, the giver of all good things- as not good enough. We have said he is not sufficient. We have not walked away like the disciples, and followed God, because we do not believe that God will be able to make up for the lose. Do you see the insanity in this?

And let me remind you- this is not a small thing to do. This is a great insult to God- so great that it breaks our relationship with him, and we are not at peace with him anymore. We are in rebellion, and upon death will not find God as our husband, and heaven as our home. We have not wanted him.
We are running away from Him. And His response is to allure us. He will put on a display of love that cannot be matched.
What does he do?


And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. Ho 3:1-2


First, notice again he is pointing out her insanity. “Raisin cakes” makes an unusual appearance here. The comparison is God to cakes of raisins. They are insane, guys. They want cakes of raisins over the Creator of the universe.
Don’t pass that up to quickly. Think about it. Think about your choices. Think about how you live. Think about what you want and how you are so quick to trade God away.

Yet, he tells Hosea to go and purchase her. And not only that, but to love her.
What trouble did she get into that she has to be bought back? We don’t know, but we sure can imagine with the type of life she was living, she was in need. And her price is small, and it shows she is for the most part worthless to her society. And the command- “go, to this whore, this worthless one, and love her. And buy her back.”

This is what God does for Israel. He is going to purchase her, and He loves her. She is doing nothing good. She is not seeking him. She is not trusting he is good. He goes and buys her. And he loves her.
And this is what he does for you.


What kind of love are you walking away from?
Listen, He is calling to you tonight. He is trying to wake you from your insanity. So am I.
Before you refuse his call and walk away tonight, make sure you realize what it is you are turning away from. Maybe that will help you see the insanity of what you are doing.

Ask- “What kind of a love is this that God has, that you want no part of?”

It is a love that is patient. Has he given up on you? Though you have spent so many days rebelling, he is still calling. You are still breathing and hearing my words, aren’t you? Is this a coincidence? He is calling to you even now. He is patient, he is so patient. Where could you find this love in the world? Who would put up with this much abuse and still love in this way?

It is a love that is kind. He has given you so much. All of the blessings you have are his gifts of love. Think of all you have, think of all the care he has provided. Not because you are good, but because he loves you.

It is a love in the face of hate. This is what you must see- he has given all those things while you doubted his goodness. More than that, while you rebelled and often hated him, while you ignored him. His love is still there. Even though you hate him, even if you leave here tonight hating him, he loves you, and you will still have blessings, screaming to you- “wake up!”

It is a love that holds no record of wrongs. How this is needed. I am certain you do not understand the wrongs that you have done, if you did, you would be weeping right now. If you understood that you have done so much worse than Israel, if you understood that you have treated him so poorly, like an adulterous wife, you would be heartbroken. But he is willing to forgive it all. He will keep no record of wrongs. He will take away all memory of what you did.

It is an eternal love. How long will the love of your friends last? How long will that earthly love you seek really be there for you? His is eternal and unchanging.


It is an unconditional love- that is, not offered you because you are good. Not like the love you are offered by those around you. They love you only because of what they can get out of you. Hosea was doing nothing good when she was bought and loved. It is not based on what you do, or how good you can be. It is just love because He loves.

It is the love that we have always wanted.
“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which hardly can be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. … At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”
- CS Lewis, the weight of Glory

It is a proven love. Many of you hear this, and you wonder “how can I trust?” How do you know that this love is real? He proved his love for you in how he bought you back.
Jesus Christ walked the earth as a man, and died a horrible death. He drank the cup of God’s wrath for you. You earned wrath because of your rebellion, and because you have considered God not worthy or sufficient. That must be punished. And God sent his own son to take it for you- he did it with willing love. He has taken your pain away, he has been your substitute. The cross is his proof- proof first of your sin, that you did do something worthy of death. And also proof of his love.


It is an immeasurable love. It is a love that takes your punishment. It is a love that gives you the righteousness you need.

Song- “beloved”
Love of my life
Look deep in my eyes
There you will find what you need
Give me your life
Lust and the lies
The past you’re afraid I might see
You’ve been running away from me

You’re my beloved
Lover I’m yours
Death shall not part us
It’s you I died for
For better or worse
Forever we’ll be
Our Love it unites us
It binds you to me
It’s a mystery

Love of my life
Look deep in my eyes
There you will find what you need
I‘m the giver of life
I’ll clothe you in white
My immaculate bride you will be
Oh come running home to me

You’re my beloved
Lover I’m yours
Death shall not part us
It’s you I died for
For better or worse
Forever we’ll be
Our Love it unites us
It binds you to me

Well you’ve been a mistress, my wife
Chasing lovers it won’t satisfy
Won’t you let me make you my bride
You will drink of my lips
And you’ll taste new life

Cause you’re my beloved
Lover I’m yours
Death shall not part us
It’s you I died for
For better or worse
Forever we’ll be
Our Love it unites us
& it binds you to me

You’re my beloved
Forever we’ll be
Our love it unites us
And it binds you to me
It’s a mystery
It’s a mystery


And if you decide to not take this love for yourself tonight, let me remind you of what you turn back to.
You turn back to lies.
You turn back to the fake ways of the world.
You turn to what you know will never satisfy you no matter how much of it you get.

We don’t want him.
We don’t want the one who touches lepers.
not the one who gives us food and drink.
not the one who forgives sin.
not the one who welcomes outcasts.
not the one who raises the guilty dead.
not the one who offers life to those who murder him.
not the one who in spite of our murders, gives life.
not the one who continues to bless a world we have given to evil.



Beloved, you are not here tonight to turn away from this love. You are here tonight to surrender to it. Trust Him, and give up- hand yourself entirely to Him.
Understand- you have forsaken this love, you have trampled this beautiful love as though it were garbage- and he still loves.
The punishment for what you have done in insulting him is more than you can imagine. You deserve to never feel love again. That punishment was taken. He offers forgiveness to you, to all who will trust in Christ to take away that penalty for sin, and give them a righteousness that they could not earn.

Look deep into the eyes of God and see what you have always wanted. And find a savior from your destructive behavior. Run no more- embrace Him.
Will you answer His call, and surrender, or will you continue to hold on to the hope that something else will give you what you need? I leave you with the picture of Hetty Green to take home. Will you go back to your 15 cent pies, or will you look at her, and think “no more”, and embrace His love?