Hosea 11:1-7 | "I Loved Him"
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· 373 viewsSunday, December 20, 2020. Hosea 11:1-7 | "I Loved Him." If we could know all there is to know about God, only then could we know all there is to know about love. This Advent sermon focuses on a particular aspect of love, Sonship love, and how God showed this kind of love to the world by giving His Son, Jesus.
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Hosea 11:1-7 | “I Loved Him”
Hosea 11:1-7 | “I Loved Him”
II. Introduction
II. Introduction
A. Introduction to Theme
A. Introduction to Theme
“I love you.”
How is it that I can say “I love you?”
I have not known you very long.
Should I not spend time with you before I say “I love you?”
Is time a prerequisite for love?
I remember seeing pictures of new parents with their newborn, first child. The caption would read: “We love this child so much. We’ve never known such a love.”
I used to have a problem with statements like that. How is it that you can love this child so deeply, when you just met that child minutes ago? The Father has not spent any time with that child. How is it that you can love that child so?
Until I my first child was born. Then I learned, that time is not a prerequisite for love. We don’t have to spend time with someone before we love them.
What if I don’t like you very much. Should I not first like you before I say “I love you?”
Isn’t that the kind of love we are taught from a young age? We are sitting in a classroom at school and a note gets passed to us.
We open the note and it says: “Do you like ______? Circle yes, or circle no.”
And just like that, in a few short steps, a “like” can become a “love.”
Is liking someone a prerequisite for love? Is that really love at all?
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
When we were enemies of God, living in opposition to God, doing that which was evil in His sight, under sin — even then, God still loved us, before we were likable. Before we were His friends (Jn 15:14).
Jesus says —
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
There is a love that is greater than the love that we know. A love that surpasses human love.
There is a love that is unconditional, meaning no requirements or burdens are placed upon the one that is loved.
This kind of love is so unique, it is found in only one person. This is the love of God.
On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we gather around this theme of love — God’s love.
The love of God is an inexhaustible theme. We can think on it until the Lord returns and the depths of it will remain untouched.
Some people are self-described “experts in love.” But it is not humanly possible to have such a comprehensive knowledge of love.
If we could know all there is to know about God, only then could we know all there is to know about love.
Frederick M. Lehman wrote these words in a hymn about God’s love:
“The love of God is greater far
than tongue or pen can ever tell;
it goes beyond the highest star,
and reaches to the lowest hell...”
“Could we with ink the ocean fill,
and were the skies of parchment made;
were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill,
and ev’ryone a scribe by trade;
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry;
nor could the scroll contain the whole,
though stretched from sky to sky.”
(The love of God is greater far, 1917).
We know about God’s love, because God tells us about His love.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
But God does not limit his revelation of love to words only. God demonstrates His love. God gives of His love.
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
God’s Word tells us that what God does, is informed by God’s love.
In everything God does, His love is being manifest.
This means that God may act toward us in a way that doesn’t seem loving toward us. God may allow things to happen to us that may cause us to question His love.
We may not always interpret what God is doing as loving, but everything God does, God does in love.
This is clearly seen in discipline. No one likes to be disciplined.
My children don’t like being disciplined. I don’t like disciplining them. But I discipline them because I love them.
God’s Word tells us —
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
We may be under the Lord’s hand of discipline, but that does not mean that God does not love us.
On the contrary, the discipline of God is evidence THAT God loves us! Because informing God’s discipline is God’s love.
Love —
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
So when we err, God disciplines us so that we might walk in truth — and this is loving.
When God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden after their sin — it was an act of God’s love. So that they might not eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in sin!
God kicked them out, so that he might redeem all humanity.
In the Church, God has appointed pastors, God has a process, to exercise such a loving discipline.
I can’t say “I love you” as an Overseer, if I see that you are living in sin and I overlook it. I would be negligent in my calling.
I can’t say “I love you” if I’m not willing to confront your sin and call it out that you might repent and be restored in relationship with the Lord.
All of this to say — we know so little about love, but at the same time, we know enough! Because God has revealed His great love for us, in Jesus Christ!
Listen again to these words of Jesus —
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
We know about God’s love, because God did not keep it to Himself. We know God’s love, because God gave His love, in the gift of Jesus Christ to the world so that we might have eternal life.
And that eternal life was bought with the blood of Jesus who gave His life for all who believe in Him.
B. Introduction to Text
B. Introduction to Text
Because love is an inexhaustible theme, we could talk at length about the love of God, the many ways it is revealed, the love of Jesus, the fruit of the Spirit of love, the definition of love and all the characteristics of it, we could talk about the love we are to have for our neighbors and even our enemies — all of which God’s Word speaks about.
The Advent season calls us to focus on a particular aspect of love — Sonship love.
What does it mean to be loved by God — as a child of God? As a daughter? As a son of God?
Jesus famously speaks of Sonship love in John 3:16 when Jesus says God (the Father) gave His only Son because of His love for the world.
While you are familiar with John 3:16, I want you to hear from a different place this Love Sunday. Hosea 11:1-7.
Hosea is one prophetic voice among a group of twelve. His prophecy is part of a collection in Scripture called “The Book of the Twelve.”
Sometimes called the “minor prophets,” their messages are in no way “minor” in significance.
Here in Hosea 11, we do not only hear about the Father’s love, but we hear from the Father Himself saying of his child: “I loved him.”
III. Exposition
III. Exposition
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
This is a reference to Sonship love.
As Hosea is giving this prophecy, a war is coming.
With the rising of the dawn there will be great destruction. The Northern Kingdom of Israel will soon fall at the hands of the Assyrians.
The LORD is not standing idly by and watching this unfold. The LORD himself is bringing about this destruction. The LORD is bringing judgment against his people. Why?
13 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,
Israel has sinned and sin has consequences. Sin is deceitful (Heb 3:13).
This is why sin is so deadly — it blinds the eyes to the truth.
Israel had expelled God as their king and forgotten Him. They no longer feared Him nor worshiped Him.
They are rebellious, adulterous, faithless, and idolatrous. A people who no longer depended upon the LORD, but trusted in the folly of their own ways.
So, judgment is coming. Destruction has been announced. “Thus it shall be done to you.” (Hos 10:15).
But is this the final word?
Is God’s judgment void of His love?
The LORD says in chapter eleven verse one of Israel —
I loved him.
Notice, that is past-tense.
You might think with such a statement that God once loved his people, but now loves them no more!
You might think God’s love is conditional in this way. Because His people have turned their back on Him, then God must love them no more.
Let us not think this way. Let us not misunderstand the love of God.
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
God is speaking about a former time, a time in the past, when Isreal was a youth. When Israel was young, before God covenanted with them as a nation at Sinai. While they were still oppressed as slaves in Egypt — -even then — “I loved him” says the LORD.
The LORD did not love Israel because of who they were. He loved them as they were.
God does not love you because of who you are. God loves you as you are.
7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,
God’s love is a covenantal love. It is not based on merits. It is a love based on promise.
It was on the basis of this unmerited love, Deuteronomy 7:8 tells us that the LORD redeemed Israel. He redeemed them from the house of slavery. He redeemed them from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
This is Sonship love! Who did God call?
My people? My treasured possession?7 No! The word here is even stronger: “out of Egypt I called my son.”
It was when speaking to Pharaoh in Egypt that the LORD makes this relationship known for the first time —
22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son,
The LORD loved Israel as a Father loves his son.
And a good Father’s love does not fail. It does not abandon His children (A.Ross, RHG).
The love of a father is passed on through the firstborn son with an inheritance.
How did Israel, as a son, respond to such love and covenantal responsibility?
How did they respond to the LORD, who on the very basis of his love for them, redeemed them out of Egypt? Who made a covenant with them, to be—according to Exodus 6:7—their God, and they his people?
2 The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.
How did Israel respond? By committing adultery!
How did they respond? With Faithlessness!
How did they respond? By committing Idolatry! Sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.
Look how far Israel has turned from the LORD their God! Look at this wayward, prodigal Son who has turned from His Father!
Look at the imagery God uses to show this — the imagery of a Father and a child learning to walk.
3 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.
Do you remember teaching your child how to walk? While they are learning to use their feet, you as Father, or Mother, take hold of their arms and you lead them.
God did that for Israel. He calls them Ephraim in verse three, another name for His people Israel.
God led Israel those many years through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex 13:21). God healed their many wounds.
God said to them:
“...I am the LORD, your healer.” (Exodus 15:26)
When we do not receive God’s love one way, God reveals it another.
Israel rejected God as their healer, so now God demonstrates His love for them by discipling them. By wounding them.
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
God desires that His people return to Him!
4 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 uses another image — this time the image of a young calf. A rebellious calf.
The LORD says — I led you not with ropes of man, but with ropes of love. I tenderly cared for you, easing the yoke from you. You did not come to me, but I bent down to you — I stretched out to you — and fed you!
But still, Israel rejects God.
3 Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him.
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
Israel is blinded by the deceit of sin, and does not know that God’s kindness is meant to lead them to repentance — to return to Him.
So the Lord does something very difficult, but very loving — He says
5 They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.
The LORD gives Israel what Israel wants, even though it will cause them ruin.
The LORD gives Israel over to Assyria.
As they have desired, so shall their judgment be, because they refused to return to the LORD.
Sometimes the most loving thing a parent can do is to let a child suffer the consequences of their rebelliousness.
Sometimes the most loving thing a parent can do is to let a wayward child go to jail.
Sometimes the most loving thing a parent can do is to kick a child out of the house.
12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.
If we turn from the Lord and continue in disobedience to the Lord despite His discipline — God may in love do something very difficult, humanly speaking.
God may give us the thing that we want, in love.
God may give us what will harm us, so that we might return to Him and His love.
6 The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels.
The iniquity they have plowed, the injustice they have reaped, the fruit of lies they have eaten, will result in the tumult of war. Israel will lose, and will be exiled from their land, to Assyria.
Yet, in all of this, we can still pause and say, How Great is the Father’s Love for Israel!
How? This is judgment! Yes—but is also love. It is selfless love.
What kind of love would allow Israel to live in continual rebellion without consequence?
You may wonder —
Does God’s love have a limit?
Has Israel gone too far this time?
Though Israel is a son, has the Father written them off as dead to him?
In Hosea 11:7, the LORD laments:
7 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.
This sounds hopeless. But when faith and hope end, God’s Word says that love remains.
“Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:8).
God’s love endures. It is limit-less!
Having turned this far away from the LORD, Israel has still not reached the limit of God’s love.
The same is true for you. No matter how far you run, you cannot out-run God’s love for you!
No matter how bad you think you are, you are not too bad for God to love!
Listen to what the LORD says next:
8 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. 9 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.
Hosea is prophesying in the Scripture as one with the last voices heard before the Advent of Jesus. Before His coming into the world.
And here Hosea records this word of the Lord:
9 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.
How does this Advent season, this Christmas season, make God’s love known to us?
By God coming to earth as a man. Not in wrath, but in love.
IV. Conclusion
IV. Conclusion
A. Gospel Proclamation
A. Gospel Proclamation
Listen and you will hear the cries of a baby in a Bethlehem stable.
Hurry as his family flees from Herod into Egypt.
Rejoice as the angel sends word, calling him out—out of Egypt!
Hear his footsteps as he walks the shores of Galilee.
16 the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
Watch as John immerses him in the Jordan.
Hear the voice from heaven proclaim—
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22, ESV).
Listen to His words, the Word of Jesus, God’s Son, who came to speak of God’s love as God’s Son —
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Listen, as he preaches —
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17b, ESV).
Jesus said:
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Marvel as he heals multitudes, and even raises some from the dead.
Listen as he tells about a prodigal son, who demanded his inheritance from his father, left and lived recklessly, squandered all he had, and once humiliated, returned home, only to be met by his father who ran to greet him, and welcome him back as a son. Luke 15:11-32.
This Son we are talking about is not Israel.
This is Jesus—the Messiah, the beloved Son of God.
Jesus is everything Israel was supposed to be. He is faithful, obedient, and without sin. Jesus is God’s true Son.
In clear contrast with Hosea’s audience, Jesus did not seek his own will, but prayed in the garden —
42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
Jesus humbled himself, and took on humanity.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
There on that cross, in the most vivid display of love, he laid down his life, while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).
God did not come in wrath, but wrath came upon Him for us.
5 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.
Because of his blood, our sins are forgiven.
Yes, it was the will of the LORD to crush him. (Isaiah 53:10).
But Romans 10:9 tells us it was also the will of the LORD to raise him from the dead!
Romans 8:15 gives us this promise in Jesus:
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
I taught on this kind of Sonship love once, and there was a young woman listening. She began to cry.
She was the only child of her father. And she was a daughter, not a son.
She spent her life trying to be the son that she was not, and could never be. Trying to live up to what she knew her Father always wanted — a son, to pass on his name.
In Jesus — we all are adopted as sons. Daughters — you are adopted as sons too!
And we all, in the name of God’s Son, receive all the benefits of Sonship and a Father who loves us, unconditionally.
B. Application
B. Application
Should you ever question or doubt God’s love for you,
should you ever think you have gone too far, or stepped outside the bounds of the Father’s love, or unable to return to Him —
Think about the manger. Think about the cross. Think about the resurrection.
Think about the love the Father demonstrated by giving His only Son for you.
How He loved you before you knew Him, how He keeps you in His love, and will love you forever.
“I love you.”
I want you to hear those words from me because they are true. But more than that, I want you to hear those words from God Himself to you ---
“I love you.”
Amen.