Like Jacob

Call to Worship: Psalm 121:1-2 // Prayer:

Adoration: Like the eyes of children to their father, O Lord, so are our eyes toward you: you are our comfort and our delight. Our whole lives rest on your mercies and your kindness, which we could not measure if we tried. You are our shield, our guide, and our redeemer to the end.

Confession: And since you have comforted us with a gift so indescribable as your Son, and shown us mercy in him, we confess also to you our sins. You know them already: how we have sinned against you by selfishly choosing screens over people; by stewing in anxious thoughts without prayer; by speaking impatient words that do not reflect your love; and in many other ways big and small, we have not loved you with our whole hearts, or loved our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: Yet again, your Son’s cross comes before our eyes, and we see the record of our sin-debt carried by him, and vanquished, and washed away. We see our unworthy souls cleansed and loved and united to you in him. What praise can human language even render for this?

Supp: Let our lives, by Your Spirit’s power, be a thanksgiving offering back to you for your grace: make us well-pleasing in your sight, and preserve us from evil that we might instead be humble and joyful and filled with the fruits of your love, with your praises more and more on our lips // and we pray this not only for ourselves, but for every gospel-preaching church in this country; we ask that you might fill the whole American church with a deep knowledge of your grace, leading to love and holiness and praise in our lives, that more and more in our nation might turn from sin to your gospel and be redeemed, that you might be all the more worshiped and glorified // and at the same time, we as that you would go before us in our own community, and soften hearts to hear the gospel, and that you would sovereignly arrange for us opportunities and meetings and people that we can share the gospel with, that in your mercy we might have the privilege of being used by you in the salvation of the lost around us // and likewise we pray for the church in Israel—both Jewish and Arab—that our brothers and sisters there might be strengthened in the gospel for their own comfort, and for the glory of your name // and now, we ask, send us your light and your truth as we hear from your Word…

Announcements

Bible study — 6:30 Wednesdays!

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

Diving into 1 Kings => no homework required!

Benediction

May the Great I AM take your hand, and teach you to walk in his ways; may you be comforted as he leads you with cords of kindness and bands of love; may he ease your yoke, and feed you with the bread of heaven. Amen.

From Hosea 11:3-4

[540]

Intro

Biographies can be, pound-for-pound, some of the best reading you’ll do. And one biography that I probably won’t forget is the book Unbroken, which recounts the fascinating life of Olympic athlete and WWII veteran Louis Zamperini.

Only, the book’s title Unbroken is completely wrong. As the book itself recounts, Louis returned home from his POW experience broken in body and soul. He tried to regain his running prowess from his pre-war days, but his body wouldn’t cooperate; he had continuous nightmares about a particular, sadistic guard who had targeted him in the POW camp; and as he turned to alcohol, his family left him. He was broken.

And only then, and the end of his rope, could that strong and resourceful man humble himself to actually hear the gospel, see his distance from God, and turn and receive God’s mercy. In God’s kindness, Louis Zamperini was broken so that he could be redeemed. And that’s instructive for our souls.

And what we have in this morning’s passage is a similar biography—the life of Jacob. Jacob was the father of the tribes of Israel. And Jacob was a strong, cunning, and resourceful man, not unlike Louis Zamperini. And like Zamperini, Jacob had to hit rock bottom in order for his spiritual sight to be clarified, so that he would seek the Lord.

And as it turns out, something like that is Israel’s problem. Northern Israel is strong and rich and cunning and self-confident, and disinterested in redemption. And, something like that is our problem: we default to a mode of trusting our own strength or living by our own cunning. And there’s a thousand varieties of this—how it takes shape in a person’s life. But it all leads toward the same thing: hard labor, far from God—what the Bible calls, exile.

But God is kind, and has made a way home from exile for sinners like Jacob and Israel and us. And so in our passage, Hosea presents Jacob’s biography as a clarifying example to teach that the strong must see their exile, and return home to God through Christ.

Jacob: From Strength to Humbly Seeking God

Now, this passage may be the most confusing passage in Hosea… at first glance. Maybe you felt that as I was reading it. So let me see if I can give you a picture of what’s going on that might help:

It’s like Northern Israel’s spiritual state is encrypted. Meaning, in their pride, they can’t read or understand what’s going on between them and God. To them, the truth might as well be written in secret code—and I don’t know if this is a thing anymore—but like you might find on the back of a cereal box: something’s written in a secret code, and you need a cypher of some kind to decode the message.

And so, here comes Hosea comes with a cypher. He’s got something which, if you layer it on top of what’s going on in Israel, suddenly shows what’s actually there. It’s a decoder ring, a cypher, if you will. And what is it? The biography of Jacob.

And the way this works is that, again, Jacob was the father—the direct ancestor—of the twelve tribes of Israel. Israel was a nation formed by uniting twelve tribes who had descended from twelve brothers, whose father was Jacob. And actually, Jacob was given the second name Israel by God—which was how the nation of Israel got its name. The nation of Israel was descended from the man Israel, so that the nation could also be called by his other name, Jacob. With that in mind, listen to the first two verses of our passage, verses 2 and 3:

Hosea 12:2–3 ESV

The Lord has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob [that is, the nation of Israel] according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds. In the womb he [that is, Jacob, Israel’s ancestor] took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God.

So there’s the cypher layered over Israel’s national life. In both verses, you’re talking about Jacob. But without batting an eye, you go from the sinful nation of Jacob or Israel, back in time to Jacob himself—Jacob, who was such a grasping conniver that he took his own twin brother by the heal as they were being born, and as his brother was coming out first. And the implication here is that Israel has a similar spiritual problem as their father Jacob.

And that mention of Jacob grasping Esau’s heal is really a reference to the whole life of conflict between the two brothers:

The story of Jacob grasping Esau’s heal is found in Genesis 25, which then goes on to record how, as a young man, Jacob manipulated his older brother into selling him the firstborn birthright in exchange for a bowl of stew.

And then two chapters later, there’s the story of Jacob impersonating Esau in order to get the firstborn’s blessing also, in place of his older brother.

Such was the conniving and false character of Jacob when he was a young man—not unlike the character of God’s People in Hosea’s day.

And then the second part of verse 3 says that “in his manhood he strove with God.” And that word, ‘strove’, has the idea of conflict. Jacob was in conflict with God throughout his years as a young man—again, not unlike the nation named after him.

But in verse 4, this brief biography of Jacob takes a turn. And this is where the cypher gives the first big clue. It begins like this:

Hosea 12:4 ESV

He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor.

What is this talking about? Well, after Jacob cheated his brother out of the firstborn’s blessing, his brother had had enough. He decided to kill Jacob. And so Jacob ran away to another country, where he lived in exile and hard service for about 14 years.

And while living in exile, Jacob acquired a family and flocks and herds by the Lord’s mercy. And then, the Lord commanded him to return from exile to the land of Canaan, where his angry older brother still lived. And you can read about that in Genesis 28 to 31.

And as Jacob drew near his old home, he learned that his brother Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men—basically, a small army. And he was terrified. It looked as though the consequences of his conniving trickery were about to destroy him—just as in Hosea’s day Israel’s sin was about to destroy Israel, and just as sin always leads to death and God’s judgement in the life of any person.

And as Esau’s terrifying army drew near to Jacob’s family—the night before they would meet—Jacob found himself alone. And then a strange event happened, which is what Hosea 12:4 is referring to when it says “Jacob strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor.” Genesis 32:24-30 records this. It says:

Genesis 32:24–30 ESV

And a “man” wrestled with [Jacob] until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”

So: here’s Jacob at rock bottom. As far as he knows, Esau might be about to slaughter him along with his whole family.

Then God shows up, in the form of a man—or as Hosea calls him, “the angel”—and Jacob wrestles with him, all night. And even as dawn draws near, Jacob will not let go of God. His hip is physically out of joint, his entire family may be about to die, but he will not let go of God.

He’s still striving with God, but in a different way now: he will not let go of God until God blesses him. And in the wider context of the story, blessing means fulfilling the promise that God made to Abraham, then repeated to Isaac, and then repeated to Jacob—promises to redeem the world through their family line.

Or to put that another way: Jacob would not let go of God until God gave him grace—which is what the word “favor” means there in Hosea 12:4. And by the end of the encounter, Jacob has received the kind of grace which has allowed him even to be in God’s presence and not die. That’s why he says, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered,” at the end of that story in Genesis 32

What’s Hosea’s point? Israel: do that. Be like your forefather, the man Israel, who would not let go of God until God gave him grace. And the point isn’t that God is stingy with his grace—may we never imagine such a thing! But the point is that we spend so much time conniving our way through life, or pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, or trusting our own strength, that act of turning and orienting ourselves toward God and his mercy will often feel like a wrestling match to our souls. But Hosea urges Israel—and us—don’t stop wrestling with God until you see God’s grace.

Now, the second half of verse 4 really drives this home. It says:

Hosea 12:4 ESV

He [Jacob] met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us— [meaning, with the nation of Israel]

In other words, when God spoke to Israel the man—that is, Jacob—he was also speaking to Israel the nation. This record of Jacob’s life was there in God’s Word for them to hear, and heed.

And its message is summarized in verse 6:

Hosea 12:6 ESV

“So you, by the help of your God, return, [meaning, repent] hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”

Or, to put that in familiar language, it’s commanding repentance, faith, and the life of righteousness that follows from those things. Israel, imitating Jacob, must return to God.

Israel like Israel: Strong, and Headed for Rock Bottom

And so the cypher of Jacob’s life breaks the code for Israel and for us. And the message is: return to God. But the problem is, we don’t like the deciphered message. “I see how Jacob needed to wrestle with God… sure. But that’s not me. I don’t have those kinds of issues.”

So Hosea sets out to connect the dots for Israel:

Hosea 12:7–8 ESV

A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress. Ephraim has said, “Ah, but I am rich; I have found wealth for myself; in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin.”

Hosea’s just pointing out what everyone knows is going on all around them:

The markets are full of merchants whose goal is to make as much money as possible by getting away with as much cheating as they can—especially of the poor, who can’t do anything about it. It’s just the way of life in Northern Israel. Anyone who can oppress is oppressing anyone they can.

But Hosea pictures all of this as a single, conniving person—a merchant, who uses cunning and a false balance to extort his customers, and enjoys every second of it. That’s what Northern Israel is like.

They are connivers, just like Jacob.

And in the midst of their sin, they are full of self-confidence: “Ah, but I am rich,” they say in verse 8, “I have found wealth for myself; in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin.”

That word, “wealth,” in verse 8 is the same as the word translated, “manhood,” in verse 3, describing Jacob. And it’s a flexible Hebrew word, but its basic meaning is something like “power.” And so by using to describe Jacob’s manly strength and cunning in verse 3, and then Israel’s financial power in verse 8, Hosea is connecting the dots: this is the same, mistaken self-reliance as Jacob himself had.

And for Israel, the result of this Jacob-like self-reliance, mixed with this Jacob-like sin, is the tragic mistake of thinking that their sin will never catch up with them: “In all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin,” they say. At what they means is: I really don’t need to worry about returning to God.

But that’s just not living in reality.

There’s an interesting parallel here between verse 5 and the first half of verse 9. Both verses emphasize God’s covenant name, The LORD, in words that recall how he led them out of Egypt.

Back in verse 5, the phrase, “memorial name” is a reference to what God said to Moses from the burning bush, as he commissioned Moses to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt. And it’s meant to say: God redeemed you there, from Egypt, so if you turn to him, he can redeem you again.

But here in verse 9, that thought is reversed:

Hosea 12:9 ESV

I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast.

=> In other words: “Yes, I brought you into the promise land, but now I am going to exile you from it, back into the wilderness. The idea that your sins will not catch up with you is tragically wrong.”

=> Or as the Lord said to his people in Numbers 32:23, “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

And actually, that phrase “dwell in tents” there in verse 9 is used to describe Jacob himself. Genesis 25:27 introduces him like this: “Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents.” And so it’s a sort of tongue-in-cheek way for Hosea to say to his neighbors: “We are Jacob.” In other words, we are like Jacob in our cunning, our sin, and our trust in our own power… we are just like Jacob, and just like Jacob, we will go into an exile of hard labor as a consequence of our sin.

And the point of all this wasn’t to say that every Israelite had the same kind of trickster personality as Jacob, necessarily. The point was to say that they all had the same basic spiritual problem as Jacob: they were all living from their own strength, and for themselves. They all had this deadly combination of sin and self-reliance. And of course, this was not just ancient Israel’s problem; it is also our problem—a trust in our own strength, that tends to be laced with one kind of sin or another. It can look a thousand ways:

It could look like pride in the degrees you’ve earned or the size of your bank account or your prowess at work or the number of times you’ve read through your Bible, which hides the lack of humble worship in your heart, and the lack of kindness in your home;

It could look like frustration when you don’t make the goals you’ve set for yourself, often matched with a self-righteous anger toward those who seem to get in the way;

It could look like the strong, silent thing: life starts to crush down on you, and you don’t really have the strength for it, but you soldier miserably on rather than wrestle with God for the grace to walk through it in a way that pleases him;

I know, personally, I’m vulnerable to all three of those versions, and more. And so what Hosea says to me and you and Israel is this: the strong (or, those who see ourselves as strong) must see their exile, and return to God.

Seeking the Prophet from Rock Bottom

OK, but there’s still a line of code here that we haven’t deciphered, and actually Hosea has a second cipher for us. The first cipher was Jacob’s biography, and that’s still here in the last five verses of the chapter. But if you notice, he has also added the original exodus story as a cipher. Though actually, the first verse of this last section—verse 10—feels like a complete interruption of his train of thought. It says, in God’s direct speech:

Hosea 12:10 ESV

I spoke to the prophets; it was I who multiplied visions, and through the prophets gave parables.

OK. So the verse right after this says nothing about prophets, which makes this kind of odd. But I think we’ll see what he’s doing in a moment.

But for now, note two things here: first, when a real prophet spoke a parable or a saying in Ancient Israel, it was actually God speaking. “I spoke to the prophets,” says God, meaning, he gave them exactly what to say. The dreams he gave them were not mystical suggestions, and the words he gave them were not a mix of divine truth and human error. When the prophets spoke, God was speaking to his people.

Second, this verse is at least saying to Hosea’s neighbors: “You need to listen to this message of exile and redemption from the prophets.”

But in the very next verse, he explains why they won’t listen. He says:

Hosea 12:11 ESV

If there is iniquity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing: in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls; their altars also are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field.

OK. So there’s sin in Gilead, and there’s idol worship in Gilgal—two towns in Northern Israel. But these altars where they make sacrifices to idols are like what? “Stone heaps on the furrows of the field.”

What does that mean? If you remember from last Sunday, Hosea used plowing as a metaphor for repentance—a similar idea to Jacob’s wrestling with God. The hard soil of the the heard heart is plowed into the soft soil of a humble heart that turns and seeks the Lord.

But what happens if you try to plow a field that has stone heaps sitting on its furrows? You can’t! You cannot plow through a large pile of rocks! And so, metaphorically speaking, the stone altars prevent Israel from plowing. Meaning, their love of idols prevents their hearts from turning back to God—even though the prophets are actively urging them to do this.

And so comes verse 12, back to Jacob’s biography as a cipher:

Hosea 12:12 ESV

Jacob fled to the land of Aram; there Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep.

What’s that? It’s a reference to Jacob’s own exile which resulted from Jacob’s own sin. And to give you the flavor of the verse, that word “served” could be translated “slaved.” Jacob spent 14 hard years working as a shepherd, being oppressed by his conniving uncle Laban, until the Lord instructed him that it was time to return home.

And the cipher is saying to Israel: so shall it also be for you. You’re about to go into a tragic exile, much like Jacob’s.

But then, here comes the second cipher, the exodus story, in verse 13:

Hosea 12:13 ESV

By a prophet the Lord brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded.

So we’ve got this multi-paralleled story here: Jacob’s hard labor in his personal exile, later, Israel’s hard labor in slavery in Egypt, and then, what’s about to happen to Israel when they go again into exile.

But here in verse 13, the story shifts to the next phase: as the Lord rescued Jacob from Aram, so he rescued Israel from Egypt in the original exodus. And how did he do it? “By a prophet,” says verse 13. And of course, that’s talking about Moses.

Implication: “Israel, when you find yourself in exile for your sin, start looking for a prophet—start looking for the prophet that God will send to redeem you. Because that’s how God leads his people home.”

And verse 14 lands this thought with weighty and serious words: “Ephraim has given bitter provocation; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.” In other words: God’s judgement is coming. Israel has sinned, and God—the good judge—has seen it. And he will punish Israel as Israel deserves. Israel will go into exile. But when you find yourself there—says Hosea—remember this: God once redeemed his people through a prophet, and he will do it again. And in fact, that original prophet—Moses—said this to God’s people:

Deuteronomy 18:15 ESV

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—

And then Moses went on to explain how this prophet would be a mediator between God and man.

And he was pointing forward to the the prophet, Jesus, whose ministry would not only lead many from Israel back to God, but also a vast multitude of believers from every tribe and language and nation on earth.

And so if we step back and consider what this passage is saying—when you give it its place within the message of the whole Bible—it is primarily speaking to those who live in sin and self-reliance, an have not yet turned to Jesus. It’s speaking to anyone who has not yet turned from sin to Christ for salvation.

And it’s urging you to do what Jacob did: to give up on his own way and his own strength, and to take hold of God for grace. By your sin, you are in exile from the presence of God, but those who humble themselves and go to him for grace, he brings home.

But it’s saying something else, too: the way to take hold of God for grace is through the prophet God would send to lead his people home from exile, and to guard them as a shepherd guards his sheep. And that prophet, that shepherd, is Jesus. The Good Shepherd has laid down his life for his sheep, so that the ultimate exile—hell itself—no longer has any claim on them.

And so this passage urges you, no matter how strong you think you are, or pretend to be, to see your exile, and return to God through Jesus.

But then, for those who belong to Christ already, what does this say? Well, we can still get caught up in sin and self-reliance, can’t we? And sometimes, this causes a distance between us and God:

A father whose family isn’t doing well, but refuses to reach out humbly for help, clinging to his pride and self-reliance;

A church that seeks to engineer its own numerical growth, rather than pursuing God and leaving the numbers in his hand;

A young person who leaves home, and in the busyness of career and life, steps away from gathering with God’s people when we meet with God…

The spiritual situation may be different, but the command is the same: see your exile, and return to God through the grace of Christ. He will receive you and welcome you back.

Lord’s Table

[invite servers up]

As we think about returning home to God through Jesus, today’s passage from Hosea pointed to Jesus as the true and greatest prophet. As a prophet, he spoke words that guard our hearts. And those words are found in the New Testament, both in the gospels, and then also in the words of the apostles, as Jesus commissioned them to lay the foundation of his words for the Church.

But then also, this greatest prophet displayed God’s truth in his death and resurrection, which have given us the way home from exile. And the bread and the cup which we are about to share are symbols of these things. And even though, we are still in exile in this age (since our Lord has not yet returned), yet we are already also partially home, because he is with us. And this truth comes to us powerfully in this bread that we share as his body broken for us, and this cup that we share, as his blood poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. As we partake in these elements together, as the little flock of Scholls, his love is with us.

Now, if you are not a believer yet, or not yet baptised, [we are so glad you are here] but you shouldn’t partake in the bread and the cup yet. Instead, you should watch, and think about what these things mean: that Jesus gave himself up to death, so that through him, you could return to God.

But if you are a baptized believer, and are in good standing with your congregation—whether you’re part of Scholls, or part of a different gospel-preaching church—you should join us with joy, as we participate in this Supper.

[invite congregation to come forward]

‌‌‌[Passing out the bread + Cup]

‌‌‌‌1 Corinthians 11:23-24 “…the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.””

‌1 Corinthians 11:25 “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.””

‌‌1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

‌[prayer]