Second Presbyterian Church Sermons

Big Idea:

Obadiah conveys God’s passionate opposition to unbrotherliness because it is deadly and can lead to damnation. We must especially love our brothers and sisters because Christ died not only to save us but to make us a covenant family.

While “unbrotherliness” is a cumbersome word, it most clearly describes the sin Obadiah is confronting.  Someone might not understand “covenant infidelity,” but anyone who has a sibling or even a very close friend knows what unbrotherliness is! It is when someone who is very close to you genetically or relationally disrespects you. We must also understand that sin is always progressive. In this case, it began with passivity. When Jerusalem was being attacked, the Edomites “stood aloof.” The next step of the progression was to “look down” as in looking down one’s nose with despising patronage. It is to consider oneself better than the one being abused. The third step was mockery. The Edomites had so divorced themselves from their brothers that they felt superior enough to mock them in their tragedy. The final step for the Edomites was actually waiting at the crossroads for those Judahites who escaped from the city and mercilessly cutting them down with the sword.   

Against this grave sin, God threatens judgment, which will lead to repentance among his elect and damnation on those who refuse. If you have been convicted by the sin of unbrotherliness in your own life, you should be encouraged, because warnings work to bring about repentance in the hearts of those who belong to the Lord. Repent, and do so knowing you still belong to Him. For those who continue in unbrotherliness, God promises damnation. Heaven is for the family of God, only for those who have been “given the right to be called children of God.” So anyone who has God’s DNA (“Christ in us the hope of glory”) loves their brothers and sisters in Christ. Those who refuse to love demonstrate that they are not God’s sons and daughters and will not therefore be found in heaven.  

Discussion Questions

Big Idea:

Pride is at the root of all sin, and God says that of all the sins, pride is that which He hates the most. If pride is the most evil of all sins, then we must know its sources and solution.

Someone has said, “The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.” The opposite of faith is setting your heart and mind on any thing other than God. The reason pride is so offensive to God is that it looks at all of His good gifts, rejects Him as their source, and sets them up as objects of worship.  

A. Strength: Strength, in this context, means trusting in your material and physical resources. That is, what do you trust in to keep you strong? 

B. Friends: If you put your trust and confidence in friends, you will inevitably feel betrayed, and when you are, it will be a test as to whether your eyes are on Christ or not. If you are trusting Him rather than anything else—including people—when betrayal comes, it will not undo you. How do you know you are trusting your friends more than God? One indicator is a tendency to cut friends off when they let you down. 

C. Knowledge: God says that if we do not first recognize that wisdom—God’s explanation of all facts—then all the rest of our thinking will be futile.  

God provides a simple but profound treatment for our pride. He transforms our pride by bringing us down to the point that we are graciously forced to humbly trust in Him. We then become more useful vessels for His service. Soon after Solomon finished the temple, God made this promise to His people in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

A. Pray: The first step to humility is to get the Cross of Christ squarely before you and realize that your sin explains its blood and gore.  Those desperate gasps by the Savior come from the weight of your sin. When you can no longer see yourself except through that cross, and  when you can no longer view another Christian who has offended you or an unbeliever whose habits repulse you except through the eyes of the Cross, then you are growing in humility. The first step in growing in this humility is humbling yourself to ask God to do this work in you, acknowledging that you cannot will it yourself.

B. Seek God’s Face: To seek God’s face demands that we first condemn our own sin before judging anyone else's.   

C. Repent: The realization of God’s favor is what ultimately results in a heart made humble by the Cross, a heart made humble by realizing God’s mercy, and a heart made humble to serve the Kingdom.  

Discussion Questions

Amos 3:1-2 
Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” 

Joel 2:1 
Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, 

Jonah 4:2b 
You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 

Zephaniah 3:15 
The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil. 

Micah 6:8 
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Big Idea:

The Minor Prophets record the nearly 500 years of patience, encouragement, and empathy of God toward his hopelessly self-addicted people. At times he is “crazy angry” as he pursues them, but because of his “crazy love,” he refuses to let them off easy and perseveres until he gains a remnant whom he will forever call his people. The Minor Prophets call God’s people to do one thing—walk with the Lord.  And the three reasons for doing so should be irresistible—because we are God’s gracious possession, he tenaciously pursues us, and he mercifully empowers us. 

As is true of the rest of Scripture, the Minor Prophets must be rooted in Genesis, which records God’s initiation of his covenant with Abraham (Ge. 12:1-3). The covenant is just this simple: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” That motif is repeated throughout the rest of Scripture as God unfolds the personal sacrifice it will require of him to make an unholy people his possession and the tenacity it will require for him to keep us as his people, while the devil wars against us and we continually stray. Therefore, a recurrent theme in the prophets is that God’s people are his blood-bought possession, and our wavering is all the more heinous because of our costly redemption.     

Under King David’s leadership, Israel became a significant kingdom with far reaching borders, so when his son Solomon rose to power there was no where to go but up. And that is what occurred; Solomon’s wealth, wisdom, and power were world-renowned.  But God warned that he would only sustain Israel’s unity and strength as long as Israel's heart belonged to the Lord. Specifically, he forbade Solomon to marry foreign women because they would rear his children as pagans, and true worship would disappear from the land over the generations. The threat was that if he did so, God would split the Kingdom and make her vulnerable to the surrounding nations. Solomon ignored God’s exhortation and married foreign women who raised idol worshiping sons, and the nation divided into two kingdoms in 931 B.C. 

So how will recalcitrant, hard-hearted, self-consumed sinners ever be turned back? God must do it. But why would he? Why would he not just wash his hands of us and be done with the trouble? After all, he has been pursuing ungrateful sinners since the creation of the world! Isn't he tired of it? Why does he persevere? Because he has promised to make a people for himself. And because he has promised, he will ensure that there will be a numberless host who will praise his grace forever. So he will keep conquering hearts until his plan has been accomplished.  

Discussion Questions