How Far is to Far?

Have you ever felt like you went to far?

Maybe it was something you said

maybe it was something you did

an action

Maybe it was or is the way your have lived your life

You felt like you can’t go back from this one

like things are now different

like you crossed a line and now you can’t be forgiven

by yourself

by friends

by family

by God

Maybe it started out as a little thing but now you are consumed by it

you can’t stop

And you don’t want anybody to know

ashamed

How far is too far?

so many times in our when we mess up it is held against us

it is what we are known as to others

and it can even become our Identity

it will never be forgiven or forgotten

“I can’t believe I did that!”

“I didn’t mean for it to go that far”

For some it becomes a way of life now

cutting

depression

drinking

drugs

anxieties

they end up ruling our lives

pornography

Relationships

it started as just a small thing but now you are stuck

constantly falling

Have you gone to far?

is there any hope?

or has is is faded away/

Can things be different?

or are we stuck?

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

How do I become something other then what I have always been?

How can I be something other then the way I or others see me?

I have gone to far to find redemption

there is no hope for me

this is what I deserve

Hosea 1:2–3 ESV

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.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Hosea- salvation

God is going to Show something about Himself

His love

His Grace

His Mercy

His Character

God is also going to show something about us

about our nature

about our brokenness

about our fallenness

Hosea in this story represents a Christ figure

while we were or are stuck in sin God sent Jesus

Romans 5:6–8 ESV

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We are fallen

we have all gone our own way following the patterns of everyone else

Ephesians 2:1–5 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

We couldn’t get to redemption so God sent redemption to us

Hosea 3:1–3 ESV

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.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.”

Gomer goes back to what she knows

she returns to being the whore and leaves

it was her identity so she returned to it

Proverbs 26:11 ESV

Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.

There is security in what we know

But God told Hosea go and redeem her

pay the price for Her actions

To go through this life doing the same-things over and over again and expecting a different outcome each time is insanity.

God says you can’t earn redemption

Romans 6:23 ESV

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

we deserve death

we deserve the consequences of our actions

we deserve all of the punishment that comes with the way we choose to live and believe

just like Gomer because of her actions deserved to passed around and degraded

having no value

so we deserve the consequences of our actions

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Christ paid our price

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The wages of our mistakes was death

some of us are experiencing that in our life right now

in our thoughts

we see nothing good about ourselves or life

in our actions

we just continually look for attention, just to feel some sort of value but end up hurting

How far is to far?

The story of Hosea and Gomer says you cant go that Far

you can escape God’s love

Romans 8:38 ESV

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

see when we were at are worst as far from God as we could be lost and in Darkness

dead in our trespasses and sins

harassed and helpless

Christ came to us and paid a debt we could never pay

Today if you feel like you have no hope

of you feel dead on the inside

if you feel like you can’t find forgiveness

if you can’t forgive yourself

if you feel like you can’t make it

if you feel like this is what you deserve

Romans 5:6 ESV

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And Jesus says

Luke 19:10 ESV

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Isaiah 53:4–5 ESV

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.