Torn so we may Return

EXCITE

Hosea has been a book that, to me, has been a powerful call for us to take a good, long hard look inside our own hearts and ask ourselves the tough question: “What is calling the shots? Who is on the throne of my heart and what matters most to me?” If the answer is not, “The Lord God Almighty,” we’ve called ourselves to repentance every week.

Part of what’s been so shocking is that God is honest about judgment coming. His discipline is real. And, His discipline isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it can be a shaping trial that forces us to rely on Him, and sometimes it’s a corrective discipline that rooting out some form of idolatry in us.

Today’s passage includes a beautiful love and hope in the midst of His discipline: He will revive us!

We are torn so that we may return. Let’s get in to it.

EXPLORE

I. The Call To Come

Head:

Chapter 6 picks up on an idea that was introduced in 5:13-14—the Lord, pictured as a lion, tears His people, causing a noticeable wound to His people. Here, His heart is revealed in the matter—He wants His people to return. The reason He has torn us is that he might heal us. We are struck down so that He can bind us up.

It is interesting that Hosea includes himself in the discipline of the Lord. Let us return…he has torn us. While Hosea may have walked in faithfulness to YHWH, he is still included in the discipline of the Lord. Sometimes our suffering is meant to correct, sometimes it is meant to shape, and sometimes it is meant as judgment. For the Christian, however, Christ has borne the full penalty of our sin. There is no condemnation left for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1). Yet the Father still disciplines those He loves (Heb. 12:5–11). Christ changes everything: we are no longer under condemnation, but we remain under the loving hand of our Father who is committed to making us holy.

“This God is a surgeon…in all the losses and crosses that baffle our life…God is doing…a preparatory work…that He may afterward come and sow the seed that shall grow into an abundant and satisfying harvest.”

Now pay attention to the logic of verse 1: Come, let us return to the Lord; for He has to us, that He may heal us. There is good reason to return: His discipline is meant to turn us to the only One who can heal us. Israel looked to Assyria for help, but the wound was spiritual, and only God could heal it.

Return, that’s the heart of repentance. Often we think of repentance as turning away from something, but Hosea shows us repentance as returning to Someone. There is a big difference between resuming religious works and returning to a person.

Finally, notice there is a point to it all: being revived that we may live before Him. The goal is restored fellowship—living in the presence of God, under His gaze and according to His will.

The response to God then is to know and press on to know YHWH. We need both the truth of God's Word and a genuine, deepening relationship with the God who has revealed Himself to us. We study Scripture to know who God is, and then we press on to know Him—not stopping at information, but pursuing relationship.

Heart:

When I was a kid, I loved me some Neon Deion, Deion Sanders, #2 FSU!

I loved his swagger…his approach to the game. There wasn’t a person in the world better at guarding a WR or returning punts.

You know what? I even got to meet him one time.

But, the reality is, I don’t know Deion. Never have. I’ll just have to settle for the memory and an old ticket stub with a faded autograph that went through the wash in the pants pocket of a nine-year-old kid.

Hands:

I wonder how many people treat our relationship with Christ the same way. It exists on the laurels of a chance meeting one time, and even though there is a standing invitation to have dinner with Him every single day, to deepen and grow our relationship, we’re content to cling to the old, faded date written down one time in the cover of a Bible somewhere. Never am I minimizing that, but I am calling us to deeper levels of commitment and relationship.

If God wants us back, why is our return so often so shallow?

II. The Rub of their Return

Head:

Their return was temporary

While the call is beautiful, the command clear, the response is found…lacking. You hear the near-vexation in the heart of God: What shall I do with you? The love of God’s people is like a morning cloud…the dew that goes early away. It was empty and easily evaporated in the early morning sun, like a lover incapable of devoting herself to one true love.

And notice the contrast. God's love is like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth (vs.3): life-giving, nourishing, faithful, and dependable. Their love evaporates almost as quickly as it appears. The truth is, God is in a one-sided relationship with His people.

God’s word exposes judgment and grace

Because they’ve been unfaithful, God has sent the prophets to cut them to pieces, slaughtering them by the words of His mouth. But there is an odd grace here that we might miss. As long as God is speaking, there is still time to respond. Their deeds are exposed and judgment shines forth like light, but the end has not yet come.

This is GRACE!

God wants relationship, not religious ritual

Hear the heart of God: His desire is mercy, not sacrifices, knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. He WANTS relationship with His people. He DESIRES the steadfast, chesed love of those whom He loves. He wants what our works can’t produce: a people who know and love Him!

So, we must return as helpless, dependent children absolutely and completely thrown upon the mercy and care of the Lord alone.

Heart:

You know, you think about dew. It’s real. There’s substance to it. If you were to run around in the morning dew on the grass in a pair of socks, you’d collect enough water to wring out of those socks and wrinkle your feet. There’s no doubt that dew is legitimately water.

But, I’ve never had to worry about the dew flooding my front yard…creating a puddle big enough to get stuck in. As soon as the sun rises, it vanishes as a vapor.

Hands:

That’s Hosea’s point. We feel so convicted in the moment, so broken and sorrowful, but something happens between the altar and the back door. As soon as the next piece of fruit that promises pleasure catches our eye, our commitments tend to evaporate, like poor New Year’s Resolutions.

But then, there’s the rub. He’s not calling us to renewed vigor in religious practices, though our return will likely need some spiritual discipline. What He’s calling us to is Himself.

Today, don’t come bringing your goodness and your gifts. Come with empty hands so you can cling to Christ alone.

III. The Faultiness of their Faithfulness

Head:

The guilt of the people is undeniable. They’ve transgressed the covenant and dealt faithlessly with God. While the covenant for NT believers is certainly confessed and experienced differently, the heart of the matter remains the same: God calls His people to be faithful to Him alone.

Here, however…like Adam, like Israel. Israel, like Adam, dwelt in a place graciously provided by God, in His presence, under His covenant and provision. Yet both transgressed His command and were driven from the place He’d given them.

Notice what the unfaithfulness produces. In places where there should have been righteousness,—Gilead or Shechem—there is evil and wickedness. Gilead is described as a city of evildoers, tracked with blood. The MSG says, “blood on the sidewalks, blood on the streets.” So evil was the city that the CSB says it is “tracked with bloody footprints.”

The connection is important.

There is rampant violence. Notice how the two connect. Adam transgressed the law of God, was removed from the Garden, and sometime after, Cain murdered Abel which led to Lamech boasting of his murderous wickedness in Gen.4:23-24. Here, the refusal to live by God’s covenant has led to the streets running red with blood.

When God’s ways are rejected, it doesn’t stay confined to the heart. It eventually spills into the streets.

What makes violence so heinous? Every human being bears the image of God. To destroy a human life is to attack the image of the God who created it.

Again, the priests are indicted for lying in wait for a man, as robbers do. The guilty bloodshed of the people was modeled for them by the priests who murder on the way to Shechem, committing villainy. Is there anything still sacred in all of Israel?

Verse 10 brings it home. In her own house, she plays the part of a harlot. Here’s the shocking thing about verse 10: God says in the house of Israel He has seen this horrible thing. While the word “house” (beit) can refer to a community or household, it can also be understood as a temple. We don’t need to understand the exact reference to feel the weight: the household of the people of God has become corrupt.

A people who were supposed to be faithful to God alone has cozied up to false gods.

There’s religion without repentance.

You could almost think of this as “country music christianity.” We party on Friday and we’re in the pew on Sunday, and we have no intention of changing a thing.

Sadly, Judah is in line for judgment as well—a harvest is appointed for her, too.

Heart:

You don't have to convince anyone that a tree is sick by giving them a lecture about its roots. Eventually, the fruit tells the story. A tree may look healthy from a distance. The trunk is standing. The leaves are there. But then you find rotten fruit. Dead branches. Disease spreading through it.

The problem isn't really the fruit. The fruit is revealing the condition of the tree. That's what Hosea is showing us.

The violence in the streets wasn't the deepest problem.

The corrupt priests weren't the deepest problem.

The idolatry wasn't even the deepest problem.

Those were the fruits.

The deeper problem was that Israel had become unfaithful to God.

Hands:

You can look alive and still be spiritually diseased. You can have the leaves of religion without the fruit of righteousness. You can have church attendance, Bible knowledge, Christian vocabulary, and religious activity—and still have a heart that is wandering from God.

That's country-music Christianity: the leaves look right on Sunday, but the fruit tells the truth on Saturday night. Let Sunday worship produce Monday obedience.

EXPERIENCE

Here’s where I think we should draw the net this morning.

Examine the fruit. The first question seems the most obvious: is there a genuine surrender to Jesus in the first place?

Have you committed to make this life about Jesus, not about yourself?

Have you turned from sin in order to pursue Jesus?

Are you following the example of Christ, pursuing love for God over everything else and while showing genuine and tangible love for others?

If not, the root issue in your life is that you lack saving faith, and today is the day of salvation.

But for others…is there hatred being harbored? Is there vexation and discontentment? Do you have a short fuse ready to be set off at any moment? Are you inconsiderate? Do you look like the world most days in the way you speak and act? Does your trust in God waver with every wave of difficulty? Are you harsh in how you deal with others? Do you ever find yourself saying, “I just can’t help myself” with any manner of sin? That’s fruit…so trace the root.

It all comes back to intimacy…genuineness of relationship…surrender. Trace it back to the heart and return to the Lord.