Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Deep Wounds Overview

The series has included sermons dealing with forgiveness; broken sexuality; broken marriages; daddy issues; grief (loss of a loved one); addiction; infertility and losing a child.

My encouragement to you is to go back and watch those other sermons and keep this series in the back of your mind because I guarantee you will meet someone who will need these sermons.

Our goal has been to get into the nitty gritty stuff of life.

We wanted to open up “your business” and do our very best to speak the gospel into your life.

What happens is we have deep wounds in our lives caused by different situations and it causes us to clam up and put walls up between us and God.

We want to open up the walls of our lives and together examine the gospel.

Jesus is not satisfied with leaving you alone in your wounds.

The prophet Isaiah over 2500 years ago spoke the God’s people about how God is not satisfied with leaving people alone in their wounds.

Today we close out this sermon series but my prayer for this church is the conversation will continue.

Whether it be with a Stephens minister or a woman to woman mentor or in your lifegroups, this conversation about deep wounds needs to carry on.

The Wayward One

Hosea’s Story

(ESV)

Hosea’s Wife and Children

God tells Hosea to take for himself a wife who is a promiscuous; a wife who Hosea knows will cheat on him; she is going to walk away at some point in the relationship; yet God tells him to enter into covenant with her.

Hosea knew Gomer would be unfaithful

But not only does Hosea marry her, together they have 3 kids

Jezreel -

2nd Child - “lo-ru-hama”

3rd Child - “Lo-ammi”

Imagine doing a gender reveal and having a bunch of people around, next to your promiscuous wife, who everybody knows about; cutting the cake finding out it’s going to be a boy, everyone cheers and then that “one guy” asks in front of everyone, “What are you going to name him?”

Imagine dropping them off at school and making them name tags.

Your kid is the super awkward kid, right!

This is a party killer!

Hosea probably wasn’t thrilled about telling everyone the names of his kid he had with a prostitute.

Yet this is what God commanded him to do.

Hosea’s life must tell the story of the Wayward Wife; the wayward nation, the wayward person.

This whole book is about how the people of God fell away from the covenant they made with him.

They fell away from relationship and gave themselves to other gods and desires.

Why the Wayward?

The minor prophets often speak to the situation of the day by referring back to a commo

God does miracles and miraculously provides for the people over and over again and all the people have to do is have faith in God and follow his word.

There are many reasons why a person falls away from the faith or live is rejection of the Gospel.

Gomer fell away from her relationship with Hosea because of her desire to pursue sexual passions.

Israel likewise fell away because they followed other gods.

They became apathetic in their relationship with God and began to put their trust in other gods.

The “Nones”

20% of Americans have no religious affiliation, they are called “nones”.

They aren’t necessarily atheists, in fact the vast majority claim to be spiritual.

But they reject traditional religious institutions, they reject church because they don’t want to be defined by what they see the church to be.

They see the church as hungry for money and power.

The church is a greedy machine seeking to gather more money for building projects and lavish living.

They have been tainted by the televangelist movements that raising money while buying multiple private jets and luxury cars.

Church leaders look more like dignitaries rather than the fisherman and carpenters that started the church.

This has caused them to be apathetic, they do not care about organized religion, they don’t care about belief systems.

They just want to live their lives without Christians banging on their door trying to get them into the club.

The Hurt

These are people who care, but have been severely hurt by the church.

They have seen the dark underbelly of the church and have been the subject of gossip and abuse.

These are people who have been deeply hurt by the church.

They have seen the dark underbelly of the church and seen how horrible Christians can be.

They become disillusioned with the church and eventually walk away.

The Passionate

Those who are controlled by their passions.

Those who’s desires outweigh their commitment to Christ.

They marry someone of a different faith.

They commit to a relationship that they know doesn’t jive with their Christian faith.

They choose their passion over and against Christ.

This is the Gomer of the group.

She didn’t hate Hosea, she wasn’t necessarily apathetic toward him, she followed the passions and desires of her heart.

In fact most people secretly fall into this category.

They want the freedom to be able to choose whatever they want without consequence.

Why can’t I have what I want?

Why can’t I do the things that make me happy?

I deserve to be happy so I will get what I want and not worry about the consequences.

The common denominator for all 3 of these Wayward souls is FREEDOM.

Each want the ability to choose for themselves what can or can’t make them happy.

They want to choose how to live their lives, they don’t want to be told by anyone, especially God how to live their lives.

Conversation with a former co-worker who challenged my pursuit of scripture.

She said “I don’t let an outdated book tell me how to live my life”

“for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.”

-

These people have seen the hypocrisy in the church.

They have seen how we eat our young and gossip about one another.

They hear us talk about grace yet don’t see us show it toward those who believe differently than us.

The common denominator for all 3 of these Wayward souls is FREEDOM.

Each want the ability to choose for themselves what can or can’t make them happy.

They want to choose how to live their lives, they don’t want to be told by anyone, especially God how to live their lives.

“for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.”

- .

People are searching for freedom in any avenue they can find it.

They search for it with governments; they search for it without governments.

They search for it with pleasures and pursuing desires yet often times they are left wanting.

We pursue things that we think will make our lives better, we pursue things that will make us happy or fulfilled, thinking if we could just obtain that thing then I would be set.

What freedom do the Wayward pursue?

The Hurt - They pursue consistency.

They want something genuine, they want something real and authentic not something that’s fake or manufactured.

They want real relationships and real honesty.

God’s Desires the Wayward

God has Hosea marry a prostitute in order to show the people their sin so they would turn around and follow after him.

God is trying to show the people he desires them!

He wants to show mercy upon them.

Hos 2:14

God desires that all would be saved!

God desires your prodigal, he desires that person you know who has walked away from the faith or is living in rebellion against God.

Gomer was a woman who represents people who have walked away from God and have given themselves to the slavery of their own desires.

The main reason people walk away from the Lord is because they are searching for a freedom they think lies beyond Christ.

They are looking for that thing, that relationship, that movement that will give them purpose, meaning, value and freedom.

The Israelites walked away from God because they followed the passions and desires of their own hearts rather than God.

they turned to other gods and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator.