Hosea | The Prophets (2)
devin deuell
The Prophets: God's Heart for a Broken World • Sermon • Submitted
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· 10 viewsGod's Faithfulness to an Unfaithful People
Notes
Transcript
Happy Thanksgiving week TCLA.
Note about Advent: About waiting, not celebrating. Building anticipation. I didn’t grow up in the church, so Advent seemed like the a Christmas tradition rather than something critically important for deepening our faith and remembrance that we live out our faith in anticipation for the day when we are face to face with God! Readings each week.
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
Pray. For those suffering, comfort them with the realization that Jesus is coming. For those who are fearful, strengthen them with the realization that Jesus is coming. For those proud or comfortable, sober them with the realization that Jesus is coming. For those who are depressed, enliven them with the realization that Jesus is coming. For those who are anxious, secure them with the realization that Jesus is coming. Holy Spirit, would you
Year-End Giving: 2020/$40. $40k by the end of 2020 so we can enter 2021 able to focus on the work God has called us to rather than sustaining the church financially. Money will never be an issue for our wealthy context in West LA— but our VIEW of money might be. 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ , that though he was rich , yet for your sake he became poor , so that you by his poverty might become rich .” —’you know the grace...’ Jesus sowed poverty in his own life in order to bring riches to others. Sacrifice is the only way that the kingdom of God ever goes forward because sacrifice is at the very heart of God. Someone has to defer from themselves in order for another person to know God. That’s what God does in the hearts of his people. We’re in the scariest year many of us have ever been through, and the worst way we can respond is to store up for ourselves and play it safe- there is no coasting in the life of a Christian because we follow a Christ who is uses weak people like us to joyfully give ourselves away in the storm when all the strong people around us are terrified and hunkering down. Really simply, I want to challenge you to realize that YOU play a meaningful part of God’s work- regular you. We are God’s “Plan A” for his work in the world. I’m so proud to be your pastor and to have seen how many sacrifices The Commons LA has made to get here. But the sacrifices don’t stop, we just keep looking to the presence of God with us, tap into the riches of the grace of God, and joyfully keep giving. And you know what one of the most awe-inspiring moments is as you walk with God out on the limbs of self-giving love? You find that you have a greater communion with Jesus and all your needs are taken care of! Then you’re so grateful that the Holy Spirit gave you the strength to live like Jesus and give rather than live like the world and stockpile. Give two ways to the 2020/$40: Giving Tuesday (no fees! normally 3% for a cc) via TCLA FB fundraiser (10% match starting at 5am) -or- pushpay app ‘2020/$40’ fund.
We open the Bible every week to hear the word of God that draws us into the presence of Jesus.
TCLA Line: 424-242-8110 for CONNECT & Q&A
Open to Hosea & Why we open the scriptures:
The Prophets PDFs: TWO HUGE BENEFITS TO THIS SERIES: God’s heart for justice & Biblical Literacy
Prophets were not ‘foretellers’ so much as forth-tellers; those who spoke on behalf of God to reveal current realities in the world that God’s people were blind to- in Amos two weeks ago we saw that God will not separate our spiritual worship from our doing social justice. The people of Israel were having passionate church services but not serving the poor, the fatherless, or the immigrant and were instead using them to profit financially.
Most oftentimes, the prophets used words to convey the truth of God in a given situation- the prophet would be given supernatural revelation to declare the broken sinfulness of God’s people and God’s heart for the broken world and call them to realign their lives to the truth through repentance.
But other times, God would have the prophets become living pictures of the spiritual reality among God’s people by employing sign acts. Isaiah walked around naked for three years, Jeremiah baked bread over human feces, and Ezekiel laid on his left side for 390 days then on his right side for 40 days. But no prophetic sign act is as powerful or famous as the one God commanded of the prophet Hosea.
Who was Hosea?
Who was Hosea?
A prophet to Israel (Northern Kingdom). Called Israel’s “deathbed prophet”, the last prophet sent to the Northern Kingdom before they were taken into exile by the Assyrian empire around 722BC.
1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. 2 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.”
Hosea was called to take a wife who would be unfaithful to him in order to give Israel a picture of their current relationship to God.
What do we learn from this image about Israel, God, & us?
God Saves people for His Intimate Presence
God Saves people for His Intimate Presence
Ch 1: Hosea’s pursuit of this wife, Gomer, is a picture of God’s pursuing Israel while they were enslaved in Egypt not because of their worth, but because of His goodness and love for the lowest and least in the world. Their children were supposed to be God-worshipers but had not chosen to follow God and instead had forgotten Him.
Especially in the context of Hosea, God’s saving of Israel can be understood in one way as taking a bride for himself.
It is debated whether or not Gomer was a temple prostitute or a woman of ill-repute, but either way, Hosea is called to live out a parable of grace. Gomer did not deserve Hosea’s proposal and she would have never expected it. That’s the point that God is making to Israel— I married myself to you not because you deserved it, but because of my goodness.
4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” 7 So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. 8 All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.” When Moses told the words of the people to the Lord, 10 the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments 11 and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. 13 No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.” 14 So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. 15 And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”
This is the beginning of a Palestinian wedding ceremony! Covenant, intimacy, preparation (Men were not to engage in sexual intimacy as a sign of the intimacy with God they were preparing for).
By saving Israel at first and you and I here and now, God is betrothing us in the most intimate relationship possible- God does not casually save people. He’s not like a Marvel superhero who swoops in just at the nick of time and then signs our poster of him before he heads back to the Batcave or Stark Tower. God saves us into so deep a relationship that the closest earthly likeness is marriage.
God made us for intimate relationship in His presence. God tells Hosea to marry Gomer and start a family to provide a picture of salvation to us. God saved you to give Himself fully to you. Heaven is going to be heaven not because suffering will be gone or prosperity will be present or because there will be no more elections (as great as that will be) or even because evil will be gone, but because God is there! In the bible, His presence is heaven. The closer you get to it, the more you experience it. If God is who he is, as awe-inspiringly good and beautiful and powerful and pure and glorious, how could we ever settle for a little bit of Him?!
Communion is the greatest desire of every human heart. First from God, then from people. Communion is loving union. It’s saying “from now on, as you go, I go. Your suffering is my suffering and my prosperity is your prosperity.” That’s what Hosea had done with Gomer. That’s the essence of wedding vows, but it’s also the kind of relationship we need from one another!
I’ll never forget being fired with a group of about 25 others from a megachurch called Mars Hill up in Seattle for some really immoral reasoning (the church collapsed years ago, its ok), and the pastor who was my boss at the church campus I worked at called me into his office and said “I see this, I’m pissed about it, and I want you to know I have a resignation letter ready that I’ll turn in if you want me to because of what they did to you.” He was saying “Your injustice is injustice to me too. I will stand with you to confront it.” That’s communion.
Maybe you have a story like that. I pray you have a story like that. It’s one of the biggest reasons that demand for therapists and counselors have become so normalized. We’re longing for communion. MCs— in your vision of community, could you step toward this kind of relationship with people?
As human beings, we do not desire stuff or accolades or success most deeply. You long for a person you respect or admire or find beautiful to look at you down to the deepest, darkest parts of you and say “I love you. You’re mine and I’m yours.” Men, you need to know that God looks at you and says “I’m proud of you, I want you as my son, we’re going to make a dent in the darkness of the world.” Ladies, you need to know that God looks at you and says “I adore you, I want you as my daughter, we’re going to bring healing to the brokenness of this world.” The affection and acceptance we hunger for can only be found in relational communion with God.
TRANSITION: God saved Israel out of slavery and into the most exclusive relational intimacy possible. But relational intimacy takes both parties to participate.
But Israel gave its love to idols.
But Israel gave its love to idols.
Ch 2: Gomer abandons Hosea, who pursues her in her adultery. Even though Israel had abandoned God and committed spiritual adultery with idols, God would choose to use their pain and devastation to pursue them and wake them up to the blindness caused by sin.
By the end of chapter 1, many commentators believe that Gomer has abandoned Hosea and had two children with other lovers- hence they were named “No Mercy” & “Not My People”. But the shock of Israel’s adultery was that they were those who had received mercy and were God’s people and still had abandoned God.
1 Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.” 2 “Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; 3 lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. 4 Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. 5 For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
WHOREDOM. Strong language that should make us really uncomfortable. Just like last week when Bryan said we should fear the judgment that God foretells for those outside of Christ, we should feel uncomfortable when we hear how God talks about how sinful humanity is. We should squirm. God wants that when we read through the prophets- our problem is not that God is too serious but that we are too numb and blinded by sin. So God gives us vivid imagery to more rightly comprehend how sinful sin really is.
What is the core meaning of “whoredom”? The root word means to “commit fornication”; to have sex outside of marriage or to abandon a spouse for sex with another. The shocking reality that Hosea is calling forth is not that Israel has merely worshiped other Gods and needed to stop, but that Israel had loved other Gods.
Now we are most surprised by the severity of God’s response to Israel’s idolatry- “I will strip you naked and kill you with thirst”- when we should be utterly shocked by Israel’s giving its love to idols rather than the God who loved them as a husband, saved them, and is the only One who can give them life. It’s worse than that though- Israel was using the gifts and prosperity that God had blessed them with to worship these false Gods. It’s like a spouse taking their wedding ring off and proposing to another person with it— God is saying “I won’t stand by and do nothing in response to your using my blessings to love and serve idols.”
Reading through Hosea 4-13 clearly shows that Israel’s problem was one of LOVE, not merely behavior:
8 They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity.
10 They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish 11 whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding.
18 When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring; their rulers dearly love shame.
11 Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth.
4 What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.
3 By their evil they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery.
14 They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.
11 Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning.
1 Rejoice not, O Israel! Exult not like the peoples; for you have played the whore, forsaking your God. You have loved a prostitute’s wages on all threshing floors.
10 Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers. But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved.
Israel was committing treachery against her husband because they wanted some added security and prosperity from Baal, a God of the surrounding nations.
Israel turned to what were called “Baals”:
ESV Study Bible: “Baal was the ancient weather-god in Syria-Palestine, who had control over agriculture and fertility, rainfall and productivity. Since ancient Israel was always an agricultural society, Baal worship was of unrivaled importance.” Baal sacrifices included drunkenness, bestiality, human sacrifice, mutilations, and incest; but for our purposes in Hosea we need to highlight the nature of ritual prostitution. Robert Valsholz says “This [ritual prostitution was] understood most probably as an act of imitative magic. That is, sexual behavior at these shrines was expected to cause the Baals to respond in like manner— to follow the worshipers by producing for them fertile seed and rain for a good crop. When a worshiper selected a prostitute, he prayed, “I beseech the goddess of Astarte to favor you and Baal to favor me.”
God is continually warning his people throughout the bible to watch their worship, to guard their hearts from going after the gods of their neighbors because WORSHIP IS CONTAGIOUS. Think about it, when you see people huddled up on the sidewalk with something going on in the middle, what do you most want in that moment? TO FIND OUT WHAT’S THERE! So too, when we see people giving their lives for something it grabs your attention and makes you ask the question- “Am I missing out on something? Do they know something I don’t know? Maybe I need to do what they’re doing?”
We never just commit a ‘sin’ on a whim. Sin is fundamentally our attempt to be sufficient in and of ourselves- to live without the real God. Idols are the things in creation we serve to achieve those ends. That service is what the bible calls “worship”. We like to think that we can distinguish between what is in our heart and what goes on in our lives: It’s common for someone famous caught in brazen sin to say “I made a mistake and that doesn’t reflect what’s in my heart.” But the bible doesn’t allow us that benefit. Even modern, Western Christianity has created a bifurcation between what we do with our bodies and what we think we can worship in our hearts. But God in Hosea is revealing that what you do with your life IS what you are devoted to in your heart. What you sin with is what you love.
Jesus taught us the same thing:
33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
God created human beings perfectly consistent- what you serve with your life is a perfect reflection of what you love in your heart.
If communion is what God created us for, we need to acknowledge the reality that God isn’t after a couple acts of service each week, he’s after nothing less than your LOVE:
6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
So Christian, how is your love for God this morning?
So Christian, how is your love for God this morning?
The idols of 21st century LA may not be named Baal, Ashera, and Molech, but they are still after your heart and they are still empowered by demons!
GOOD THINGS BECOME GODS: Your sin will almost always hide inside a ‘good thing’ that goes beyond the boundaries God has set for it.
ELEMENTS OF WORSHIP: [WRITE THESE DOWN]
ELEMENTS OF WORSHIP: [WRITE THESE DOWN]
Devotion: What has your heartstrings reveals what you worship. Love and emotional weight. Goes well, you’re ecstatic. Goes poorly, you’re undone. What takes up your time when you stand in line somewhere or when you lay down?
Sacrifice: What you sacrifice for reveals what you worship. When two things compete for your priority, you sacrifice the one you love less for the one you love more— it reveals what you worship. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? That’s an exact reflection of what you love in that moment.
Relationship: Who you surround yourself with reveals what you worship. Look at your social media feed for a mirror— The premise of the church is that we need to be surrounded by other Jesus worshipers to encourage our own worship.
Example: Grades rule your life. When you get A’s, you are relieved but only for a couple hours before thoughts about the next midterm comes around. You skip out on church or MC when midterms or finals come around because you believe the most important thing you can do is get a good grade rather than do something worship God. Worshiping God and getting B’s is infinitely better for you and honoring to Jesus than worshiping the idol of achievement and getting A’s.
Example: Job rules your life. You obey your boss and cancel any other plans or obligations if a late night work meeting gets scheduled- there’s no better example of being enslaved to someone other than Jesus than the way we assume we just need to obey our bosses. You sacrifice your morning time for email rather than engaging the presence of God.
Example: Leisure rules your life. Family rules your life. Kids can rule your life. Reputation can rule your life.
The heart of Hosea’s message to Israel is this: Israel, your sin is not just stumbling into small sins, it’s whoring- giving your love to some lesser god. When you are unwilling to give your heart fully to God, you are showing that there is something that you love more deeply than God! It’s not just about God, it ruins your life and eventually will harm those around you.
Just as any loving husband would be enflamed with jealousy for the love of His wife, God is jealous for His people’s love. So he will do two things: break up their adulterous relationship and pursue his bride.
6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. 7 She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ 8 And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. 9 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.
Theres the breaking up the adultery. God will make the worship of Baal, that Israel was performing to bring themselves prosperity, fruitless. The picture is one of Israel getting lost and waking up to realize that all the things she had were given to her by God, not Baal, and returning to Him.
14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. 15 And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. 16 “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.
There’s the pursuing of His bride. Chapters 4-13 of Hosea are God building a case to prove to Israel just how devastating its adulterous worship is. Now we read this as ‘foretelling’, meaning what will happen in the future- so we might respond by saying “great, the story ends happily ever after!” But that’s not what’s going on here- this is what’s called a "conditional prophecy”. God is saying that some will return, yes. But Isreal must respond to Hosea’s judgment with repentance to be a part of this prophecy. We know from biblical history that ultimately they would not respond in repentance and the nation of Assyria would take them into exile.
When we give ourselves to something other than God to let it rule our lives, we will always reap emptiness internally, destruction in our lives, and oppression and injustice toward others will eventually be the result.
TRANSITION: Hosea doesn’t leave us with conviction, he offers us hope.
Turn back to Christ’s endlessly pursuing love!
Turn back to Christ’s endlessly pursuing love!
1 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.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. 3 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.”
Ch 3: Hosea and Gomer renew their covenant of marriage. God yearns for Israel to return to Him because zealous love is who He is.
Chances are, we all have some thought lurking in us that is condemning us for our lack of love for God or disqualifying us from being worthy of love from God right now. The devil loves to throw our sin in our faces as proof of our condemnation. If our eyes stay on us, we are never going to get ourselves out of the messy entanglement of idolatry! The difference between the condemnation of the devil and the conviction of the Spirit is where your eyes are directed.
Our hearts are recaptured not by focusing on our effort, but by casting our eyes to seeing Jesus’ heart for us.
Hosea’s battle for the heart of His bride ultimately shows us a faint reflection of Jesus, who’s heart would not relent until the heart of his people is His.
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.
Our zeal for God will only ever be fueled by seeing His zeal for us. Just when we think that our idolatry will incur God’s wrath and anger, we see that if we are in Christ God’s heart “recoils”, it lunges forward with compassion toward us. It’s the image of the father of the wayward son who returns home in Jesus’ parable of Luke 15- as soon as the father sees the son on the horizon he runs to him and grips him in affection and joy and love.
INVITATION TO NON-CHRISTIANS: This is Jesus’ love for you— he’s not running away from you but running after you. “The son of man came to seek and to save the lost.” Turn to receive his love, give him the sins of your life, and open your heart fully to His Spirit’s work and you will be saved into the arms of the only one worth living for!
INVITATION TO NON-CHRISTIANS: This is Jesus’ love for you— he’s not running away from you but running after you. “The son of man came to seek and to save the lost.” Turn to receive his love, give him the sins of your life, and open your heart fully to His Spirit’s work and you will be saved into the arms of the only one worth living for!
FOR THE CHRISTIAN: In Ephesians 5 the Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus is husband of the church, who’s heart led him to give his life for us before we were even born!
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In your battle against sin, the only power you have is to see that something has happened to you in Jesus: you’ve been brought into the presence of God and your future is incredibly bright. Jesus doesn’t just run after us like Hosea, He grabs us right out of our idol worship and brings us into the presence of God by sealing us with the Holy Spirit. He makes us see what we could not see.
Grace isn’t what most of us have been taught by oversimplified doctrine- “forgiven status” or merely “unmerited favor”.
Biblical Grace is the unmerited presence of God that brings with it all His blessings.
“…the grace of God comes to us no more and no less than Jesus Christ comes to us. In the biblical gospel we are not given a thing; we are given a person.” Dane Ortlund
With all my heart, as your pastor, I yearn for you to EXPERIENCE what you have believed to be TRUE. I’ve talked to so many of you who are struggling with fear and anxiety and depression and addiction and sin and fruitlessness- those are real challenges for us all. But if we give in to those feelings, we are left with no other power to overcome our LOVE for idols. How could we love that which seems less real to us? We’re grasping after our idols because they feel more real to us that our Jesus. But what if the profound suffering of 2020 isn’t an obstacle to experiencing more of God, but the MEANS for more of Him?
20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
You cannot out-sin God’s grace because your sinfulness cannot outstrip Christ’s righteousness. Our inner ugliness cannot smear Christ’s beauty. Our whoring after idols and giving them our love cannot betray Christ’s love for God. The more we sin, the more Christ’s heart longs for us. We are so burdened with guilt and shame for our spiritual adultery that we can’t even acknowledge how guilty we are to ourselves, how could we ever bring it to God Himself? But God tells us to bank on it.
CONFESSION AND REPENTANCE ARE THE ONE PATH BACK INTO THE EXPERIENCE OF GRACE.
Christianity is so simple we overcomplicate it. Martin Luther’s first of the 95 theses was this- “All of the Christian’s life is one of repentance.” That’s because confession is the only path back into communion God.
6 “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”
Repentance and faith will mean that we stop doing a lot of things that displease God. But what about when we’ve made an idol out of things that we can’t just get rid of? A spouse. Kids. Our job. Money.
Like two pedals on a bicycle, we receive forgiveness vertically from God to receive spiritual cleansing by the cross of Christ, but we also must confess sin to other Christians so that they can embody the forgiveness of God and assure us of grace and we can live restored among our fellow believers. We’ve all had hidden sins where we’ve felt a relational gap between us and people we know should know us more deeply than our sin allows. If either pedal of that bicycle is not pushed, we won’t ride fast enough to stay upright- we’ll eventually fall over. It is normative, historic Christianity for the expectation among God’s people to be that every new, known sin would be confessed to a small group of close Christians. Our faith isn’t real to us most days and we are intimidated to talk about Jesus with non-Christians and we aren’t passionately commited to justice in our city because we are riddled with unconfessed sin that numbs our hearts to God and the Church and the city. I wonder what would happen if at the start of every Discipleship Group meeting we asked 1) Has Jesus been real to you this week? & 2) What unconfessed sin do you need to share and receive the assurance of the gospel from fellow believers? Hosea ends with a promise for all those who are too fed up to keep living with their idols and too empty from the illusion of sin. As sure as Jesus Christ is alive, you can be sure that the Holy Spirit will make Hosea 14:4-9 real to us if we simply live consistent lives of everyday turning back to the presence of God through confession and repentance. We just might experience renewal and see revival spread across our city if we take Jesus’ word here seriously:
4 I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. 5 I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; 6 his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon. 7 They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon. 8 O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit. 9 Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.
Like Hosea, your whole life is a prophetic sign act for the Kingdom of God to be made visible in the world— your sins are no longer shame-inducing, guilt bearing weights, but pathways in this dark year to make visible the light of the presence of God! If we will confess our sins every day, Jesus will become more real to us as Hosea 14 promises the healing of our whoring hearts and the flourishing of joy while we march toward eternity with Him!
Prayer
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
What stood out to you in the text or teaching?
What are the idols that are found in your specific context (school, work, neighborhood)? What the idols that go undetected in the church?
Q&A
Q&A
Individual Response:
Individual Response:
Is there a creative way we can open our hearts to God?
Quiet confession to God. Ask for forgiveness afresh from Him.
Offer Him your heart & life completely- nothing is hidden or off the table.
Receive Jesus’ righteousness freely by faith.
Corporate Response:
Corporate Response:
Embrace the Presence & Power of God: Prayer & song
Praise God in Song
Announcements:
Announcements:
Continue in worship: Giving (stewardship/mission/budget).
MP interest meeting after next week’s gathering!
BENEDICTION:
20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
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Not until the 1930’s were objects and experiences marketed to people for their desirability. They were only ever marketed for their functionality- but the nephew of Sigmund Freud realized that the human psyche had deep, subterranean desires that if harnessed could drive them to circumvent logic and to live purely according to desire. Deep human desires were never believed to be able to be satisfied by STUFF, but only by relationships to others and to gods.
MISCONCEPTION ABOUT SALVATION: Many of us have gotten the sense from sermons and imbalanced attention to some verses over others that God saves us to make us morally pure so he can somehow look glorious for making our guilt go away.
We are no different than the Israelites’ idol worship!
While Israel had temples to worship religious entities of their choosing, we worship the god of self at modern temples- we just call them stadiums or strip clubs or cowork spaces or mosques. BOTH are idolatry. Satan and demons don’t care if you have a statue with a religious system devoted to Baal or Nirvanah or Allah or if you have a screen that revolves around the all-powerful self where you can worship according to your own expression and be your own little ‘g’ god. Even though the appearance of worship has changed, our spirituality emptiness has not changed because we cannot be satisfied or at rest until we have found it in the One who made us for Himself.
Not until the 1930’s were objects and experiences marketed to people for their desirability. They were only ever marketed for their functionality- but the nephew of Sigmund Freud realized that the human psyche had deep, subterranean desires that if harnessed could drive them to circumvent logic and to live purely according to desire. Deep human desires were never believed to be able to be satisfied by STUFF, but only by relationships to others and to gods.
Israel had physical temples to serve something beyond themselves, the 21st Century Western world has boiled down temples where we serve ourselves.
where they relied on spirituality to control what they did not know outside of themselves, we in the Western World have temples of knowledge that we believe will control ourselves
Progress: You become like what you worship:
Israel & the Golden Calf:
16 Like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn; can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture?
The only One who can sustain a human life in the One who made human life: The Trinitarian God as Father, Son, and Spirit.
We are Relational Creatures: The direction of your life flows by the internalizing the presence of another: true of people, true of worship.
Scripture: They became like what they worship
Sin has created a scary environment for relationship.
Hosea text
The God of Relationship in Himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, created us relational to our core. That means our spiritual worship is relational.
Humans are at their core relational beings, so our worship is relational.
“Your life will rise and fall, your ministry, your marriage will rise and fall on the quality and character of your relationships.” Rich Plass
“We are constituted as relational creatures. Fundamentally, you and I find fulfillment and meaning in our lives predicated upon the quality and character of our relationships. The reason why presence matters when we think in terms from the lens of relationship, is because when you are together with anybody, its impossible for you to NOT internalize the presence of other human beings. A person is formed and shaped by the internalization of the presence of another.” Rich Plass
HOW IS YOUR LOVE FOR GOD THIS MORNING? What God offers us: The experience of his presence.
Relationship, not Ritual: The most basic effect of sin is ‘alienation’, turning away from God and being unable to reconcile ourselves back to God— that’s why the entry of “sin” into the world is called “The Fall”— humanity had fallen short of the “Glory of God” and was no longer capable of relational connection to God. So we create rituals. Rituals are religion void of relationship. but what distinguishes Christianity from all other faiths is the supernatural reality that through Jesus Christ, the Living God of the Bible offers Himself to all who will open themselves to Him.
One Rule of the Relationship: Faith is the act of losing our own identity in ourselves and placing our whole being at the feet of Jesus to receive a new identity in Him.
One Benefit from the Relationship: “Grace". Not
How we participate: Understand, Know, & Obey (listen to him).
REPENTANCE IS RETURNING TO PRESENCE
REPENTANCE IS RETURNING TO PRESENCE
Confession & Devotion
Confession: We go to God in agree with His forthtelling Spirit that brings conviction to our conscience. No more hiding, no more playing games and turning blind eyes, no more blaming our sin on others or our situation, but owning it and stepping into the blazing light of God’s presence with total openness. Why is it so hard to confess sin?
But in Christ, your guilt has become a prophetic sign act that puts on display for the whole world the forgiving love and mercy of God. When you freely confess your sins to God and brothers and sisters in your Discipleship Group or Missional Community, you are living out the invisible reality that God loves sinners— especially the big ones like you and me-- and joyfully forgives them through Christ. What that does not mean is that we increase our sinning intentionally— the effect of grace is to show us that what we always wanted from our sin and idolatry is actually an echo of what relational dwelling with God brings. It’s the difference between a card from the one you love and being with the one that you love. The smell of the Thanksgiving meal and the tasting of the real thing. The only way you could trade one for the other is if you have a momentary lapse of crazy before you suddenly wake up or you are so delusional that you don’t really know the real thing.
GRACE Heals our SHAME: Brings us Shame believes that at our very core we are deficient in our identity.
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2 The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. 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. 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 declares over Israel that when they were called out of Egypt, they were called out as a son— a royal people who were dignified by their identity as belonging to God. But when they gave themselves to the Baals, they became more resistant to the voice of God- “The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to Baals...” They were stiff necked. God led them with cords like a leash and eased the yoke that was on their jaws and he had to bend down and feed them.
THEY DID NOT KNOW THAT GOD HAD HEALED THEM. The Israelites as sons of God had so taken on their false identity as Baal worshipers that they lived as broken people before God. They were spiritually convinced that they were calves, so they were walking on all fours. The presence of God heals us of our shame. While guilt tells us that God won’t accept us, shame tells us God can’t fix us.
There is a deep truth about our humanity here: What you serve, that you become. Remember to be human is to be relational to our core. That means we don’t just do activities, we attach ourselves to those things.
I love Seahawks football. They are having a good year. Guess what, I hunger for more Seahawks news and get emotionally invested in their games. My soul is attached to the Seahawks because I find meaning there. Both the desires you cultivate and the acts of service you render begin to internalize the object of your worship.
If you are a used car salesman who needs to make the beat up cars you sell more desirable to people, you will become a more deceptive person.
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. 10 They shall go after the Lord; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west;
GRACE Overcomes our FEAR: As we dwell with God, we come to know His holy love. Brings us strength in the jealous love of God’s presence. Fear captures us when we believe that God just doesn’t care enough to deliver us.