Drawn by Kindness

Call to Worship: Psalm 148:1-6 // Prayer:

Adoration: Our Father, how you have loved us. You who did not spare your own Son, but delivered him up for us, the ungodly. How you have loved us! The one who was equal to you was made subject even to death on a cross. He alone had power to lay down his life, and power to take it up again. For us he was both victor and victim—but victor in the end, because he was the victim. For us, Father, your Son was both priest and sacrifice—but priest in the end, because of the sacrifice.

Confession: And it is with confidence in Jesus our Priest that we stand before you and pray to you, and even confess our sins to you. And we have sinned—in thought, word, and action, we’ve sinned against you; in what we’ve done, and in what we failed to do, we’ve sinned. We have not loved you with our whole heart, and we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: Yet through your Son’s priestly sacrifice we were made your children. And so in him, we joyfully receive your forgiveness.

Supp: And our hope is strong in you, that you will one day heal all our sins and remove death from us forever by him who sits at your right hand, who prays for us. Otherwise we would despair, because or sins and sorrows are many and great. But your medicine in Christ is greater. And so what should we ask for but boldness to speak of your Christ to our families and neighbors and anyone who doesn’t know him—please make us bold, and give us opportunity, or even show us how to make opportunities, that the praise of your name might spread through us speaking your gospel // and we ask for this boldness also for the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Cross Creek Bible Church, that by your Spirit’s work they might have a joy in Christ that overflows into a bold witness to those who need to hear the gospel // and at the same time, we bring before you the immigrant population of the Portland area: many different languages; some our brothers and sisters in Christ, but others who’ve never heard the gospel; we ask that you would appoint folks to bring the gospel to those who haven’t heard it, and that you would more healthy and biblical churches among them, for the glory of your name // and beyond our country, we pray for the church in Japan: we ask for power and boldness for your people there as they witness for you in a difficult culture, and comfort and peace and holiness as they walk with you // and now, as we turn to hear your Word, we ask that you would show us your light and your truth to lead us further into your presence…

Announcements

BBQ Report + August potluck cancelled

Bible study — beginning this week at the Dunn home!

6:30 Wednesdays

Family friendly format: 1st 10 min. for all ages, then kids dismissed and the rest of the time is for older kids and adults

We’ll be diving into 1 Kings => no homework required!

Benediction

Psalm 19:14 ESV

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

[580]

Intro

Is repentance really worth it?

As Christians, we talk about repentance a lot—that turning of the heart from sin to God. And repentance is a good thing. But it’s not exactly a pleasant thing—at least at first. And so someone might ask you, “Why bother? Why repent?”

You might answer, “Well, because you ought to. Sin is ugly: every time you sin you’re going against the one who gives you life and breath and everything, and you’re going toward destruction. You ought to turn from sin to God. You ought to repent.”

And that’s absolutely true. And that’s what we will see in the first half of this passage in Hosea… but it’s only half the coin. Half the reason.

Why should a sinner repent?

The other half of the coin—the other reason to repent—is actually by far the more powerful reason. And it is what’s found in the second half of today’s passage.

[And I’m not going to say what it is quite yet, because then you’ll have to stay awake through at least half the sermon to get the answer...]

Now, thinking about this second reason, if you cast your mind back through this book of Scripture—

At the beginning of Hosea we had the story of God’s marriage to Israel—Israel’s unfaithfulness, how that shattered her covenant relationship with God, but then God’s promise to redeem her as his bride. And that frames the whole book for us.

And from there, we started into Hosea’s prophecies. We saw the malignant power of sin as spread through Israel; then we saw the destructive effect of sin, causing Israel’s downfall. But now, as we draw near to the end of the book, another theme is going to rise up—a theme that, among other things, gives us the second reason that it’s worth it to repent.

And so, let’s dive into this passage to see what answer we get to the question: “Why repent?” “Why bother repenting?”

Repentance During Judgement

Now, the first three verses here—verses 11 to 13—use the metaphor of farming. And it’s the kind of farming that most of Hosea’s neighbors would have worked at as a way of life:

You begin by using a yoke to attach a plow to an animal, and then guiding that animal to pull the plow through the field, breaking up the dirt so that it’s ready for a crop to grow in it.

And then you might plow it through it a second time to break the dirt up into finer pieces—and that’s called harrowing.

And then you’d sow seeds into the dirt. And then rain would cause the seeds to sprout and grow until harvest time.

And then, once you’d harvested the grain, it was time to thresh it out—to get the actual grain kernels out of the husks and ready for use.

And so there in verse 11, we start at the end of the farming process. It says,

Hosea 10:11 ESV

Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck...

This pictures God’s people as a young calf who is cheerful and obedient, ready to help thresh out the already-harvested wheat so that it’s ready for use.

And back then, a calf who was helping to thresh would be allowed to eat the grain as she worked to thresh it. And it was light-weight work, compared to the heavy work of ploughing. Really, a delightful job from the cow’s perspective.

And so this is a picture that reaches back in time to when Israel was young and God brought her into the promised land and gave her rest and blessing there. He rescued her from hard labor in Egypt, and filled her with good things in the land of Canaan.

But then there’s a turn in the verse: we go from the joyful job of threshing at the end of the harvest to the hard labor of plowing at the beginning of the whole process. It says:

Hosea 10:11 ESV

…but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself.

Now, Hosea doesn’t tell us what this means quite yet—what kind of yoke God’s going to put on his people. But the picture is of something difficult and unpleasant and far removed from fruit you hope to see. There might be fruit coming in the future for Ephraim, but if you’re in the process of turning over the dirt to make it ready for seeds, you’re pretty far away from the joy of harvesting.

And really, not that much has changed from that day to this. Turning over the dirt in your garden or farm is necessary for a good crop. The roots need soft soil to sink down into. And every spring, out next to the house, that’s what we do. We turn over about 220 square feet of garden with a garden fork, and it’s hard work, and there’s no quick payoff.

And so verse 11 begins with a picture of God’s past grace to Israel, redeeming them from the yoke of slavery in Egypt and blessing them with good things in the promise land—they were like a young calf cheerfully threshing and eating grain at harvest time. But then it tells us that something’s about to change. God’s people will soon wear a yoke of hardship again like they wore in Egypt. This was how God would punish them for their sin.

But verse 12 carries this farming metaphor on to show that Ephraim’s hard labor in plowing will not be merely punishment. It says:

Hosea 10:12 ESV

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

Do you see that? This yoke that Ephraim is about to wear will not be mere punishment for sin, but also an opportunity to repent.

The idea is that this yoke—this hardship they are about to face—will be an opportunity for the hard soil of their hearts to be broken up and softened into the kind of humility and lowliness where righteousness can be planted. And if a little bit of righteousness is planted there as they seek the Lord, it will grow up into a harvest of steadfast love in their souls—love for God and for neighbor.

And if in their humiliation and hardship—if in God’s punishment of their sins—they will set their faces to seek Him, he will even ‘rain righteousness upon them’. Meaning, he will send his grace to help their crop of righteousness grow.

And so, to sum up these verses plainly, Hosea is telling Israel: when you find yourself wearing the yoke of God’s discipline, repent.

But maybe at this point Hosea’s neighbors would object. And maybe we and our neighbors would too: I mean, is it really that big a deal? Do we really need to repent? And the way Hosea describes it, it’s not a quick and easy correction. You turn to God, and then you become a farmer who works in this long and slow labor toward an eventual crop of steadfast love? Our proud and selfish hearts—addicted to the quick solutions of our age—resist this idea.

“Well,” says Hosea, “You actually have no choice about whether you’re going to farm. We’re all farmers, and we’re all growing a crop of one kind or another. Either you’re growing a crop of love with your face set toward God, or you’re growing a crop of lies and injustice with your face set toward your own strength. Listen to how he expresses this. He tells the people of Northern Israel:

Hosea 10:13–14 ESV

You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed…

Do you see that? It’s the farming process again, but on the dark side. When you sin, you’re planting seeds. And those seeds grow up into a crop of injustice with the fruit of lies, which the farmer harvests and consumes. And Israel’s doing this—so they think—in safety. Because after all, won’t their strong army protect them from any consequences that might come?

=> And isn’t this what a local church does when it budges on integrity to get more people in the door? Or to chase an experience? “Oh, well our methods are strong; we don’t need to worry about the harm our sin will cause to God’s kingdom.” May God mercifully guard us from that way of thinking.

=> And closer to home, don’t we as individuals sometimes fall into this thought-pattern? Trusting in our own strength to deal with sin’s consequences, rather than turning to God?

But the destruction sin brings, says Hosea, is far beyond anything that any nation or community or person can deal with.

And he communicates this [in the second part of verse 14] with a gut-wrenching picture from Israel’s previous history [and this is an event otherwise unmentioned in the Bible] where a city called Beth-arbel was overthrown in battle, and the violence and destruction were so complete that even mothers with their children were slain.

It was probably an event that Hosea’s original audience remembered well, much like we would remember the sinking of the titanic or the attack on Pearl Harbor. This was the horrific kind of end that Israel’s sin is now dragging them toward. So verse 15 says:

Hosea 10:15 ESV

Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off.

The King, along with the whole nation, would be destroyed as judgement against their sin.

But then, if we back up and place this in context, what is this? It’s not complete destruction. It’s the yoke from verse 11.

The fall of Israel to the Assyrian Empire would be horrific, but not a total end for God’s people. And Judah’s mentioned there too: so also with him. He would later fall to Babylon, but also not be completely destroyed.

The exile of God’s people from God’s land would like a yoke: hardship, but also an opportunity to break up the fallow ground of stubborn hearts into the soft soil of humble hearts, where righteousness could be planted and steadfast love could grow.

God’s people would have a chance to repent, and they should repent because their sin is ugly and destructive.

And so also with us: if you’re walking in sin, or if you know you’ve sinned but you haven’t repented, and maybe the consequences of your sin have caught up to you, or God is disciplining you, what should you do? Repent. Your sin is ugly and leads toward destruction; and that’s why you should repent.

Future Redemption Speaks Into Present Judgement

OK. But there’s another kind of objection to repentance: “I get it that my sin is bad. And I know it brings death. I ought to repent. But will repentance do any good?” In other words, “Is there any hope for me?”

You can think about those Israelites who believed Hosea. What a discouraging thing for them to hear: “Our covenant with God is in tatters, and our children will live in exile and hardship because of our sin. Is the hard work of plowing even worth it? Is the slow crop of righteousness even worth planting?” And even more haunting than these things: “Can God even accept this crop from our sin-tainted hands?” Again, “Is repentance worth it?”

And haven’t you found yourself in a similar place before: “Can I even come back to God?’

“Let’s think about the Exodus,” says Hosea. “That will answer the question.” And so we have chapter 11 verse 1, in the direct words of God:

Hosea 11:1 ESV

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

That was God’s first great act of redemption. In the days of the Exodus, he named the people of Israel as his son, and loved them, and called them out of their slavery in Egypt. He rescued them.

Yet, even toward the beginning of their life with God, Israel had this problem of drifting away to worship false gods. Verse 2:

Hosea 11:2 ESV

The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.

Yet, God really did love them. Listen to the description of his kindness there in verses 3 and 4:

Hosea 11:3–4 ESV

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.

God had been for them a loving, gentle, patient father, as it describes him in verse 3. He had watched over them and nurtured them when they were young and vulnerable and needy.

Then in verse 4 the metaphor changes back to farming: he led his people like a young calf, not yanking on the rope, but with kindness and love like gentle bands to show them the way. He eased the yoke of Egypt off their weary jaws, and bent down to their level to give them food from heaven.

That was God’s way with Israel: love, patience, provision. From Hosea’s point of view, that was Israel’s past experience of God’s grace.

But how about now? Now that Israel has so utterly turned it’s back on God, what will happen? Three verses bring us back to the reality of Israel’s stubborn love of evil, and God’s response of judgement:

Hosea 11:5–7 ESV

They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.

Do you hear those phrases? Verse 5: “Because they have refused to return to me.” Verse 7 “My people are bent on turning away from me.” There’s Israel’s failure to repent.

And so, there’s the yoke Israel will carry—the judgement that’s about to fall on them. A raging sword to devour their cities, and captivity in a foreign land. And we more or less saw that a moment ago at the end of chapter 10.

But here, it’s cast a little different. Notice how verse 5 describes Ephraim’s yoke: “They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be there king...” In other words, even if they don’t happen to be literally returning to their former captivity in Egypt—the one Moses led them out of—yet, they might as well be; they’re going right back into the same state of captivity as before, even if their masters happen to be Assyrian instead of Egyptian. Ephraim is about to go on a reverse-Exodus. That’s what Hosea is saying here.

And if Ephraim goes on a reverse exodus back into captivity… would it be too much to hope? Could it possibly be… ? Could God redeem them again? Might his mercy stretch even that far? Hosea has set us up now for what we’re about to hear from God in verses 8 through 11. Verse 8 says:

Hosea 11:8 ESV

How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.

These words were like water for the parched souls of God’s people. The judgement that was about to fall on Israel would not be Israel’s end.

Admah and Zeboiim were two cities that God destroyed for their utter wickedness along with Sodom and Gomorrah, as recorded back in Genesis. When God judged those two cities, they were utterly wiped out, never to be inhabited again. But God would not judge Israel like that. Somehow, he would not give them up.

And look at how God’s love is described: though he brought his good justice against wicked Israel, yet he had no delight in their suffering. In spite of the horror of who they had become, his ultimate stance toward them was still compassion.

And as this tender compassion plays out, it plays out in two ways. First, God would come to be with his people, and second, God would lead his people on another exodus. Verse 9 tells how God would come to be with them:

Hosea 11:9 ESV

I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

Do you see that? God has a righteous hatred of Israel’s ugly sin. But somehow, he will not act on it. I mean, Israel’s going to keep sinning, even after they’ve been removed from the promised land. But somehow, the destruction of God’s people for their sin will never happen again. How?

After Ephraim is destroyed and exiled by Assyria, God will come to him not in wrath, but to dwell with him and be his God. How? Well, he’s God and not a man, it says. And so, somehow, he will overcome the problem of Israel’s sin. And you may already know where that’s going…

But let’s look at the next couple of verses, which give us this new exodus. Verse 10:

Hosea 11:10–11 ESV

They shall go after the Lord; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.

What an image. The Lord in their midst will act with tender compassion; yet his voice will be like the roar of a lion, summoning his people irresistibly back to dwell with their God.

And they will come trembling like little children, or like birds. There’s nothing particularly impressive about them. They’re small, delicate, vulnerable. Yet home they shall come, because the Divine Lion has roared, and none can stop him.

And again there, it says they shall come from Egypt and Assyria, which are simply two places symbolic of captivity.

And so shattered Israel might ask, “Is it even worth repenting? We are so tainted with our sin. Could God really receive us back again?” And what was Hosea’s answer? Essentially it was this:

Do you remember God’s tender loving kindness when he rescued us from Egypt?

When we go into captivity for our sin, God’s going to do that again. He’s going to redeem us, but this time with a redemption so great that we’ll never go into captivity again.

Or to put it plainly: You should repent, because God is kind. You should repent, because God brings repentant sinners home. And that’s by far the most powerful motivation to repent.

Redemption in the Human King/Divine Lion

But how did this new exodus actually play out in history? How did God make this second, greater redemption of his sinful people? Through Jesus. And this is where things get interesting:

To make a long story short, that phrase “out of Egypt” is actually a reference—a hyperlink, if you will—to a much earlier place in the Bible. Hosea borrowed it from Numbers 23 and 24, a passage which re-tells how God had rescued his people from Egypt, and then predicts that God would some day bring his people’s king out of Egypt.

So—follow me here—by the time Hosea came on the scene, the part of the Bible which had already been written up to that point already said there would be a second exodus. And it had already said that in the second exodus, God would bring Israel’s True King out of Egypt. And it had already described that King as a lion. And that’s all in Numbers 23 and 24. And in today’s passage from Hosea, he’s hyperlinking back to that whole idea. So you’re supposed to read this part of Hosea with that part of Numbers in mind.

So let me read two verses from the Numbers passage for you, describing this predicted King of God’s people:

Numbers 24:8–9 ESV

God brings him [that’s the king] out of Egypt and is for him like the horns of the wild ox; he [the king] shall eat up the nations, his adversaries, and shall break their bones in pieces and pierce them through with his arrows. He [the king] crouched, he lay down like a lion and like a lioness; who will rouse him up?

OK. So let’s stop for a second and add up these pieces: as God once rescued Israel from Egypt, so he would some day bring Israel’s True King out of Egypt. And this king would be like a conquering lion. That’s what the book of Numbers said long before Hosea.

Now, what did Hosea say to explain that passage from Numbers? Chapter 11 verse 1: God once called his Son Israel out of Egypt. Chapter 11 verse 10: God would some day roar like a conquering lion, summoning his children again out of Egypt.

Do you see what Hosea did there? If you didn’t don’t worry. Let me spell it out for you: the human, lion-like king spoken of in the book of Numbers is also the divine, lion-like king spoken of by Hosea—God himself.

And this Truly Human, yet Truly Divine king would do what?

On the one hand, he would be called out of Egypt by God (and by the way, Matthew 2:15 straightforwardly tells us that this was fulfilled in Jesus, when his parents brought him back from Egypt to Nazareth after Herod died).

And yet, on the other hand, he would be God-With-Us. He would be the Holy One in our midst, as verse 9 says, who did not come in wrath, but to save. And he would save by roaring like a lion to summon his lost children home from exile.

And so the tender compassion of God has dawned on God’s people in the God-Man, Christ Jesus.

As one of us, he experienced our exile with us, so that when he triumphed over sin and death and returned to the Father, in a spiritual sense he brought us with him into the Father’s presence. As it says, “We are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

And as God-With-Us, he has called us home to the covenant relationship that had been lost through sin.

And from the rest of Scripture, we know how he did this: by carrying our sins in himself beneath the good justice of God, that he might declare us forgiven, cleansed, and free.

Why should you repent? Because through Jesus’ death, God receives repentant sinners.

Back to Us: What Will the Sinners Do?

And why does this all matter?

The last two verses of our passage bring us back to the reality of our world. They tell us, there’s still some faithfulness left in Judah, but Ephraim is gone—given over to sin.

Maybe you’re in a place like Judah, walking with God—a believer. But you still sin in many ways. And it can be so discouraging. Why repent? First, because your sin is ugly and dangerous. But second, because God has already brought you home through Jesus. And so he receives the humble, repentant hearts of his children with the tender kindness of a good father.

Or, maybe you’re in a place like Ephraim. You don’t know God, or you’ve strayed badly into sin. Why repent? Again, first, because your sin is ugly and dangerous. But second, because God delights to bring repentant sinners home, and he does so in Jesus. Because of God’s redeeming kindness, repentance is not in vain.

Now, let’s think about the practical implications of this. If repentance is how a Christian grows the fruit of love in his life, and if the kindness of God is what leads us to repentance, then you can’t be a godly church unless you are first and foremost a church that preaches the kindness of God in Christ. Do you see that?

How a biblically-minded church like us can so easily go astray here!

Do we want to be godly? I hope so! Then we must always be gazing upon the mercies of God revealed in Christ.

Do we want to be—as James wrote—unstained by the world? The our primary defense is not decrying the world’s evils (though we must do that to some degree). But our primary defense is to gaze upon the love of God in Christ, which assures our hearts that in spite of the ugliness of our sins, the lion has roared to summon us home, and so we have been received by grace into the presence of God.

Are you discipling a younger believer? Husbands, fathers, are you leading your family spiritually? Then in any given trouble, ask yourself: have I applied the gospel to this situation? Has the person I’m discipling really grasped the kindness of God?

It’s the kindness of God that tells us repentance is worth it. It’s the kindness of God that illuminates the way back home.