So today's teaching scripture comes from Hosea Chapter 11
verses one through 9. So when Israel was a child, I
loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them, the more they went from me.
They kept sacrificing to the bales and offering incense to
idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim
to walk. I took them up in my arms, but
they did not know that I healed them.
I LED them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.
I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.
They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be
their king. Because they have refused to
return to me. The sword rages in their cities.
It consumes their Oracle priests and devours because of their
schemes. My people are bent on turning
away from me to the Most High they call, but he does not raise
them up at all. How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Adma? How can I treat you like
Zeboyem? My heart recoils within me, my
compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger.
I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God and no
mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in
wrath. This is the word of the Lord.
Hi everybody, I've heard before I start I want to give a shout
out to Tori. For preaching last week on short
notice, she did a tremendous job and had.
Like 3 days to prepare because my whole.
Family and I had. The Super flu.
So we decided in lieu of sharing that with you all.
We would. We would, you know, bring, bring
somebody in, so well done. Tori, she's with the kids.
But just had to. Had to shout that out so as we.
Begin. I want to just take a moment to
name something that I know is present in our sort of cultural.
Moment. There's a lot.
Happening right now in our. World related to.
Immigration and state power and violence and fear.
And some of it is. Very close to home.
And for some of you, this has stirred anxiety and grief and a
sense of vulnerability. And I've just.
Heard from people this week who are.
Thinking about this, and so, you know, many of us are holding a
mix of all these things all at once.
Others are trying to make sense of what a faithful response
looks like in the moment that we're living in.
And I just want every person here at Central Vineyard, every
person listening online to hear. This clearly if you feel.
Afraid or confused by the moment that we're in?
You are not alone, and if you feel angry, that does not make
you unfaithful in some way. God loves you and sees you, and
the Holy Spirit is not absent in moments like this.
Far from it as a community shaped.
By the way of Jesus. We hold two things together in
moments like this. We're committed to mercy because
every human person bears the image of God and is worthy of
dignity and care. And we entrust ourselves.
To God's justice for the powers that seek to fracture.
And dominate and diminish life in our world rather than restore
it. And so my.
Prayer for U.S. Central.
Vineyard is that. We would be.
People who are marked by mercy and who are learning to.
Be people of peace. And courageous presence without
becoming in any way cruel or anxious toward our neighbors.
And I would just want to say if you feel angry or confused in
some way, you are not alone. And this is a moment to grab on
to one another in community. To be able to.
Process through this and share and talk together our team is
aware of what's going on in the world our central community
leaders, our. People who can be trusted as as.
Partners in conversation or in prayer, our prayer teams on
Sundays. So just wanted to put that in
front of us. And so as we turn toward today's
scripture, I want you to imagine a society that somehow both
feels confident and sort of brittle at the same time.
Strength is projected and sometimes.
Exaggerated by those. Who are in power prosperity is
made visible for some people and.
For others, the realities of. Poverty and oppression are as
real as ever. Identity Language.
Is everywhere. Public religion continues, even
intensifies, and it becomes deeply entangled with political.
Life. In ways that threaten to
completely. Hollow it out.
And beneath. The surface of all of this.
Fear and uncertainty are quietly organizing everything behind the
scenes. Shows of power.
And international agreements are increasingly mistaken for real
protection. And when people feel threatened
or overwhelmed, they don't stop worshipping or loving or
trusting. They redirect their love toward.
Things that they can touch and see, things that they can hang
onto and feel even more real to them than the presence of God.
Our trust shifts toward. Whatever promises us clarity or
certainty or control and. Voices that.
Sound decisive or systems that claim that they can fix
everything. We sort of think that somehow
they can. Hold all of this together.
The things that offer security to people become.
Sort of objects of devotion, national symbols, phrases,
particular leaders. And in the case of ancient
Israel in the text. That we just read.
The gods and the idols of their neighbors, these things are
trusted and clung to in ways that were once reserved only for
God. What I'm describing to you is
the nation that Hosea was writing to was prophesying to in
the 8th century BC. And if it sounds.
Familiar at all? I think that's one of the the
reasons that the prophet has something to say to us right now
in our day. And so the central question that
I want to ask this morning as we look at the Prophet Hosea in our
minor. Prophets series is this.
What do we attach ourselves to? When love becomes costly.
Even this week I sort of noticed this in myself.
With a little. Bit of an overloaded nervous
system coming back from illness, feeling a little bit anxious
about everything that needs done and my.
To Do List that had. Grown.
While I was away and the state of the world, I caught myself,
sort of. Reaching for things that
promised. Control or relief?
In some way, not dramatic things, just small things, but
distraction, busyness, checking the news one more time, the
illusion that if I could just manage a few more small details
well. I'll, I'll feel OK.
Again, I'll sort of feel steady again.
Nothing terrible, nothing shocking, just familiar.
Ways of. Coping that quietly ask
something other than God to sort of hold my life together.
Can you relate to that? At all.
Have you ever found yourself in that?
Place two or three people. That's good.
The things that we reach for can be as concrete as money or
pleasure, or as abstract as control or productivity.
Or approval. And.
This is exactly where Hosea. Begins speaking to the people.
Hosea. Is writing to, just for a little
bit of context, the northern Kingdom of Israel during the
reign of King Jeroboam, the second in the 8th century and on
the surface. This was a a period.
Of strength and expansion. For the people of Israel, so.
In other words, they would have been looking around going this
seems. Pretty all right, like.
Things seem stable. We're going to be OK.
The economy grew, national confidence was on the rise, and
from the outside it. Looked like stability but Hosea
as a prophet. Is preaching from inside the
underbelly of a prosperous nation.
He has some insight. He has some ideas from.
God about how this whole. Thing might not actually be
going as well as it seems like it is.
And so beneath the surface of what's happening, injustice was
deepening and worship was becoming increasingly entangled
with national identity, and the surrounding Pagan worldviews
were sort of encroaching on the way that.
The Israelite people. Understood themselves and their
faithful devotion to. Yahweh was sort of
deteriorating. Over time, Hosea is preaching in
the decades. Just before Israel's
destruction. And we hear just a little bit of
a hint of. That in the passage that.
Thomas read this morning. The Assyrian Empire to the north
and to the east is is sort of pressing.
Closer and closer to Israel. And Hosea can see what many
others refused to acknowledge, that the strength Israel is
relying on is brittle. It will not ultimately save them
the alliances that they're pursuing with other nations.
They won't sustain. And within a generation, as
Syria will sweep in and completely dismantle the
northern Kingdom, take the people into captivity and in the
passage that Thomas. Read the prophet refers.
To the Northern Kingdom. Of Israel also as.
Ephraim So when you see that in the text, that's that's the same
thing, but the the people living there will be.
Effectively. Decimated Hosea insists that the
tragedy here is not simply. Because Israel made bad
political. Decisions it's that they
misunderstood their identity as a people.
They misunderstood where everything that they.
Had. Everything that they were was
coming from. And so at one point.
God says they set up. Kings without my consent and
they choose Princess, but I do not acknowledge them in Hosea
chapter 8. In other words, Israel is
organizing its life around powerful people, around power
and strategy and control, and it's sort of masquerading as
faithfulness. And so, in the ancient world,
political alliances were never just.
Political. They always carried religious
expectations so to align. Yourself with other powerful.
Nations meant accommodating the. Worship of their gods.
And so. People.
Who had been called into? Exclusive fidelity.
Exclusive faithfulness. To Yahweh found themselves
necessarily worshipping other gods as well, to maintain their
sort of political strength and to understand why that mattered
so much. We have to remember why Israel
exists. In the 1st place so.
Over the the the course. Of the entire Hebrew Bible.
We see that Israel. Was not chosen because they were
stronger or wiser or more righteous or more important than
the other nations around them in any way.
From the very beginning. They were chosen to be
different, not for an end unto. Itself, but actually for the
sake of the world. For the sake of the nations, for
the sake of their neighbors, and so when God. 1st called.
Abraham, the father of these. People, he said through.
You all the families of the earth.
Will be blessed. And so Israel's vocation,
Israel's job in the world was to be.
People who were shaped by their trust.
In God, so that the nations might come to know.
What this God was like, the whole idea of their life
together was to sort of have a. Society a way of being that
would. Put on display for the peoples
of the world. The kindness and the grace and
the goodness of God. And so when the people.
Of Israel start to give up their worship of Yahweh.
In favor of other Pagan gods. This is why the prophets take
such issue with this, because they're.
They're selling out. They're selling out.
The very reason? That they had to exist.
In the 1st place and so we'll see.
As we teach through these prophets.
Over the next couple of months. This.
This God, this. Pagan God.
Baal or Baal keeps? Showing up and and Baal
represents something very different the name itself means
Lord or master and this this Pagan God was tied to fertility
and rain and agricultural abundance and so these.
Forces determined whether a society would succeed or
collapse. Keep in mind Yahweh has already
promised. The people of Israel that he'll
care. For them in this way, he'll give
them what they need. But Israel looks elsewhere for.
Something that's a little bit easier to see for something
that's a little bit easier to hang on to.
Hosea names the. Tragedy with clarity, God says.
She did not know. That it was I who gave her the.
Grain, the wine and the. Oil, therefore I will take.
Back my grain. In Hosea too, so early.
In this book God. Starts to kind of lay out his
case. Against the people and says.
All these ways. That you've been provided for
all the things that you have, they've come from me, but you've
attributed them to this other God.
And so the issue wasn't ignorance, it was a misdirected.
Trust Israel had. Taken the gifts of God and
credited them somewhere else and when Israel loses its
distinctiveness, the. World loses its.
Sign pointing to the kindness of God.
It's important to keep coming back to this because.
This whole issue that the prophets have with Israel.
It's not about. Rule.
Following It's not about legalism, it's about putting the
love and power of God on display for the world in a.
Particular way that would draw people to the love of God.
Does that make sense? OK.
And so? That's why Hosea.
Opens what becomes known as the. Book of the 12 to expose this
relational rift. Between Yahweh and His people,
Hosea is teaching Israel and teaching us how to understand
God's. Jealousy.
God's. Wounded love for their affection
and God's justice through the lens of the love and the mercy
that's extended to them rather than than legalism or rule.
Following the deepest crisis that we see in Israel isn't
their bad behavior. It's not that they don't know
how to. Behave.
It's that they have forgotten who they're supposed to.
Be in the sight of. The rest of the world they have
forgotten. Who they are and what they're
meant to show the world. And that's why Hosea.
Speaks the way that he does. And friends, this to me is.
Where this text becomes so. Relatable.
I mean, I don't know about you. But it is so.
Easy for me in the. Course of my regular everyday
life to sort of look. Around and be knocked off.
Course. And and forget what kind of a
person I'm supposed to be in the world like.
What is supposed to? Be in the very forefront of my
mind as I interact with my neighbors, as I think.
About just the the the. Situation in the world around me
and how I ought to respond as a faithful person and what are the
things that knock me off course, the things that are a little bit
more tangible, the things that are a little bit more real,
whether it's the balance in my bank account.
Or how secure I feel? In one thing or another.
Or, you know, taking care of of my own before looking to take
care of my neighbors. Whatever it is for you.
I know what some of the things are for me that just sort of
distract me from from the the fundamental invitation that
comes to me from God to be a person who puts the love and
the. Character of Jesus on display.
In my everyday life. And so this brings us to one of
the most important things to understand about Hosea that.
What? What the prophets?
Are calling out as idolatry is not primarily about violating
commands. It's about misplaced attachment.
It's about giving. Our hearts over to powers.
That cannot love us in return. And we'll just continue to take
and take and take until we've got nothing left to give.
And so Israel is seeking security and prosperity and
identity apart from the God who loves them, apart from the God
who calls them. And in Hosea chapters.
One through 3 there's this Fascinating, interesting,
confusing. Story about the prophet God asks
the prophet to embody israel's story through his.
Own life. And so God actually tells Hosea
to marry Gomer, which becomes a living parable.
Gomer is an unfaithful wife to Hosea.
And there's lots of different. Sort of interpretations and
ways. That.
Commentators. Will will work their way through
this text, but the the. Central important thing to
understand. Is that Gomer?
'S unfaithfulness is not just. Personal betrayal.
It mirrors Israel. Turning away from Yahweh and so
the. Prophet has this.
Intimate experience of. Sort of the the.
The thing about? God's heart, that's.
That's being communicated. Here is this.
This experience of being. Betrayed by his very own.
People. This is a God who who stays
nonetheless at great cost. And this reveals something.
About God's posture toward. People longing.
For restoration and so. Early in the book.
In the 4th chapter God. Brings what amounts to a legal
case against Israel, and so we read.
This. Story about Hosea and Gomer and
what the Lord speaks in there and then we.
Get to chapter 4 and we see that there.
Is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the
land. God says there is.
Only cursing and lying. And bloodshed.
But even here, the charge is not just moral.
Failure, It's relational. Chapters 4 and. 5 Go on to talk.
About how Israel. No longer knows.
God. And the Hebrew word for knows in
this context. Is yadah it's this.
This like intimate relational knowledge.
It's not a it's not a an intellectual ascent.
It's not, oh, we know some some facts about God.
We know what we've been taught about God from from our.
Teachers through the years. It's it's this this deep.
Relational knowledge one of another.
And that broken relationship shows up everywhere.
So Israel continues to worship. Yahweh sacrifices are offered.
All the festivals are kept. The religious calendar is.
Full, but Hosea exposes the. Emptiness underneath all of it.
And God says in Hosea. Chapter 6.
I desire steadfast love. And not sacrifice the knowledge.
Of God. Rather than burnt offerings and
I think. The Prophet offers.
Something timely to us here as well, friends, you know, we look
around and and I. Love the church.
I believe God loves the whole. Church.
But I think we can agree that all around us we can sort of see
displays of empty religious devotion that are just.
Devoid of the heart of God that are devoid of.
What we know of the love of Jesus.
And I don't want to be so arrogant to think that we can be
exempt from that in this House. And so when I read this text, I
just become. Aware of the ways that.
You know, our attention can so easily be drawn toward making
sure that, that the program is just right or making sure that
that this thing gets done just and listen, you know, I'm I'm
here for doing a good job. I'm all about that stuff.
But what a helpful. Reminder directly from.
Hosea God desires steadfast love, not empty.
Sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
And So what a helpful check right on our process, on our
day-to-day. Our week to week.
Why is it that we're doing what we're doing?
Why is it that we're showing up in the spaces that we're?
Showing up in. Is it for steadfast love of God?
I hope so. So religious.
Activity among these. People has replaced faithfulness
and. Israel is still doing God
things. But their.
Hearts are no longer oriented. Toward God himself, Hosea.
Will not allow. Israel to reduce this to a
behavioral issue. I appreciate how often the
prophets keep. Returning to speaking about the.
Heart of the People. You know, so often we can kind
of get tricked into thinking that.
The Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, right?
It's about the law or it's about rules, or it's about you know.
This thing or that? But what it's about is just.
God becoming king of these people, God consistently calling
them back to devotion and faithfulness to to God and.
So the problem is is. Who and what they're loving, who
they're turning to when fear rises up in them and life.
Feels a little bit fragile. Is it?
Is it a? A wooden or stone or gold idol
that they can touch with their hands and feel some kind of
security and sort of run the the test, right?
We made the sacrifice. We did the thing, we prayed the
prayer. And so now we're going to watch.
And you know, if the rain comes, then we know it worked.
And if it doesn't, then it didn't.
But God calls them to something that's.
Actually a little bit harder to track.
It's a little bit harder to sort of.
Measure. Because it's about an attitude
toward the love of God. And so as God continues.
To lay out the case. Against the people of Israel.
We see this stuff. About political alliances, Hosea
names. The ways that this rupture shows
up. Politically, we'll see this on
an even deeper level when we look at the prophet Amos next
week. But Ephraim feeds on the wind,
God says, and pursues the east wind all day long.
What's that mean? That's weird.
They're not eating the wind. They're looking to the stronger
kingdoms to the east. That's basically what he's
trying to say is that. There's there's a force.
To the east of the Northern Kingdom.
That they have, sort of. Aligned themselves with for
security and and it goes on to say.
They make a treaty. With Assyria and send olive.
Oil to. Egypt.
So the striking image Israel is restless.
And anxious and constantly shifting from 1:00.
Source of authority to another Syria.
To to the northeast and. Egypt to the southwest.
Looking to these stronger kingdoms to sort of protect them
and give them something that ultimately God says only I can
give you rather than trusting. Yahweh Israel is.
Hedging its bets against what might come against them.
These alliances are not strategic decisions only.
They're acts of trust. It's a people literally saying.
This we're we're. Pushing all of our chips in
here. Not, not Yahweh.
Not the grace of God. That's come to us through the
centuries, but actually. These these other outside
forces. That we feel like will.
Be more faithful to protect us. Than the God who loves.
US. And beneath God's.
Critique all the way. Through the reason that I I
picked this passage from chapter. 11 That we read as our
key text is God's heartbreak. When Israel was a.
Child, I loved him, God says. But the more I called them, the
more they went from me. So this is not the.
Voice of a detached ruler. This isn't the voice of.
An angry, distant God speaking to the people.
This is the voice. Of a parent who's watching a
child. Slowly drift away from them.
Israel has taken the gifts of God and credited them.
To Bale's. Account they've mistaken
provision for permission to walk away.
From a way of life. That they've been called to and
God names. This to tell the truth about
what's happening to their hearts.
But God does not abandon the. Relationship with his people,
God. Is not interested in surface
level reform or religious performance, and that's why
Hosea is so honest about the human condition.
He's never simplistic, but Israel's unfaithfulness and
political alliances aren't treated as unique moral
failures. They're presented as emblematic
of something that's deeply human that we can all sort.
Of relate to over and over and over.
Again, God names the pattern underneath Israel's wandering.
My people are determined to turn from me, God says in Hosea
chapter. 11 They they call out to the most high.
But he is not exalted among them, and so Hosea gives us one
of the most vivid images. When he describes Israel as a
dove, easily deceived. And senseless now calling to
Egypt, now turning to Assyria. And it's this image of
restlessness, people sort of unable to sit still, unable.
To really. Trust anything in a deep way,
just flitting from one source of security to another, never
settling, never resting, always sort of scanning the horizon for
the next thing that might keep them safe.
And so again, you know, this can sound really distant from our
everyday lives when we read this sort.
Of stuff a prophet. To an ancient nation, but I mean
for me. Like I've talked about, Rita's
frozen. Custard on Henderson Rd. before
and. This is this is like really how
how it? Gets us, you know, like that's.
Where? That's where I go.
To find a. Little bit of security or a
little bit of peace. So I don't know about you, but
you know, maybe it's just like the the quick.
Doomscroll on the toilet. Maybe it's, you know, whatever.
I don't. Know I don't know what it is for
you, but this is the attitude of the heart that the Prophet is
talking. About and so you know.
I get. That you're probably not making
political alliances in your day-to-day life.
Maybe you are, I don't know. What you're into, but the things
that sort of take our attention from one thing to another, think
about the things that keep you from concentrating on something
that you really want to sort of focus on.
Whether it's like. Reading a book or doing some
meaningful deep work or whatever it might be in your mind just
sort of goes from one place to another.
Feeling reminded of this thing and that in the news or in your
in your. Life.
These are the things. That sort of pull.
At our, at our attention, at our heart, and.
Keep us from really. Being able to lean in and.
Hear what it is that. God might be saying to us.
And so this is how Wandering works and one of my favorite
novels of all time. Jaber Crow by.
Wendell Berry. I don't know how many.
Wendell Berry. Readers, we.
Have in the room but. Just incredibly worthwhile.
Do do read it, he says. The world is full of preachers.
That have never learned to be satisfied and you know when when
fear rises in us when some kind of insecurity rises in us, our
trust. Doesn't disappear, it just
relocates. We just sort of move it to the
the thing that. Feels the closest, feels the
real estate to us we attach ourselves to.
Systems, ideologies, identities, coping mechanisms that promise
certainty and protection even if they can't love us in return.
Hosea says Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning in
chapter. 8IN other words, Israel.
Keeps building more. Places to put their hope.
You know, you can just sort of imagine this kind of frantic
ancient society that's. Building altars to other gods.
Thinking you know if. We just go over.
Here and we build another altar. Like maybe the crop will be
better next year. And there's just more, more
strategies to manage their anxiety, more structures to try
to guarantee outcomes for themselves.
We haven't changed. As people, there's, there's.
Very little that's different about them and us, apart from
our place and time. And so really, what's.
Striking to me. About all of this is how God.
Ends up responding. To the people.
There is no detached disappointment, there's no cold
resignation in the response that we hear from God.
God speaks with grief. This isn't the.
Voice of a God. Who's fed up and angry with the?
People or. Lashing out in some way.
It's the voice of a God who's heartbroken.
God is. Grieving because Israel no
longer knows. Where to rest their trust?
And they don't see. Why it is that they're?
Wandering away and so when? Hosea calls Israel to return.
He's not calling them. To try harder.
Or to clean. Themselves up or to adopt
another new strategy. For trying to get themselves.
Back on track. He's not issuing a demand for
moral improvement. He's naming A relational
movement toward the One. Who they have slowly.
Drifted away from. 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.
That sentence alone tells you what kind of return from the
people. That God is really after this is
a God who is offering. Healing who is offering
nearness, restoration, attachment to the people, not
abandonment, not rejection. All.
Of this is in service. To restoration and notice how
close. God is in this invitation, in
the language that's used. God doesn't stand at a distance
waiting. For Israel to fix itself.
God does not stand at a distance waiting for you.
To fix yourself, God moves toward the people.
God speaks, God allures, it says.
One place in the text God makes the first move return in.
Hosea is not climbing your way back to God.
It is. Responding to a God.
Who is already near? And so when Israel does return,
even imperfectly, God leans in immediately.
I will. Heal their waywardness and love
them freely. It says, For my anger has turned
from them. The initiative belongs to God.
The healing belongs. To God the love.
Of God is given freely, it's not earned by the.
People. And so this.
Is why Hosea keeps. Circling back to the same.
Truth that the work that. God's doing is.
Deeper than behavior modification, it's.
Deeper than just doing a better. Job, God is not interested.
In surface compliance, God is healing the things inside of us.
That are sort of disordered. That are aimed in the wrong
direction Israel needs. A restored.
Attachment A secure attachment to someone they can trust, We
need. A restored attachment and a
secure attachment. To someone we can trust and when
I. Look out at the world.
And I consider my life and I. Consider the story of the.
Scriptures the one sure thing. Is the love of Jesus.
Who puts on? Display this God who absorbs.
The betrayal of the humans. So at this point you might be
thinking this is a compelling expose on Ancient.
Israel. But what could this possibly
have to do with me and I just? Want to invite you to lean into
that question. As we teach.
Through the minor. Prophets.
Because that's actually a really.
Easy and sort of common thought to have.
There's a lot of weird. Stuff going on in the prophets
and when we read them, it can kind of be like what?
Like what this is? Really weird, like I have no
idea why I would be. Reading this ancient text from
an ancient society on the. Other side of the world.
That's dealing with their, you know, political alliances, and
they're worshipping other. Gods and.
All of this stuff but one of the most compelling things to me.
About Hosea right at the. Beginning of the Minor Prophets
right at the beginning of the Book of the 12.
Is that it? Closes with this this line at.
The end of the book after all the.
Poetry and the accusations, the grief, the longing.
Hosea closes with what sounds like, and most commentators
agree is actually an editor's note.
So Hosea is like a. Collection of Think of.
It as like Hosea's greatest hits.
So a lot of people would say this is like.
You know, he had a long career prophesying to Israel, and this
is a collection of. Some of his greatest prophecies.
And one of the. Scribes who collected.
All of these sayings. Together likely added this
little. Addendum to the end of the book
and it. Says those who are wise.
Understand these things. Those who are.
Discerning know them for the. Ways of the Lord are right and
the. Righteous walk in them, but
transgressors stumble in them. Why would we have?
Added this to the. Very end of the book.
What we? See.
Is that the intent of? I would say this prophet.
And all the prophets. Is to.
Teach us how to recognize. The.
Ways of God when we encounter them in our own lives.
Hosea's poetry is not locked in the past.
And what I think this passage is saying is it's it's revealing
something about. The character of God.
That we're being invited to discern alongside.
The prophets as we read. These books.
So, you know, there are like little parts of the scriptures I
don't know if you've ever heard it said.
Of the Bible, You know it. Was it was written for?
Us, but was not written to us. In other words, the intended
audience of most. Of these texts was.
You know people in a different place and time, and so while
it's written for your benefit, it's not written to you.
But then there are like little bits like this.
That I actually think are written to you.
And so I just think it's really fascinating to consider, you
know? Whoever this was, that would
have collected. Hosea's writings.
Together, whether it was Hosea. Himself or one of his students.
Thought it necessary to just. Say, right here at the very end
of this book. This is This is for you.
This is for your benefit. As you consider this.
Sort of across space. And time.
There's something timeless. There's something universal.
About God's character. That you ought to learn from
what's written here. And so throughout this book, God
speaks as a. Grieving parent A.
Betrayed lover, A faithful spouse.
God doesn't say I'll tolerate you if you behave better.
God says I will betrothe you to me forever.
And the. Betrayal of the people.
It doesn't get erased. God absorbs it and the witness.
Of the New Testament makes this pattern even clearer if.
Hosea shows us God's heart. Jesus shows us God's heart.
Embodied Jesus doesn't contradict Hosea in any way.
He. Fulfills what Hosea has to say
about the character of God. And so.
Where Hosea reveals a God. Who is wounded by
unfaithfulness? Jesus reveals that that same.
God stays present to unfaithfulness.
All. The way to the end.
Quoting from the Prophet. Isaiah.
Matthew's Gospel. Says of Jesus here.
Is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom
my. Soul is well pleased.
I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to
the Gentiles. He will not.
Wrangle or cry aloud nor. Will anyone hear his voice in
the streets? He will not.
Break a bruised Reed or. Quench A smoldering Wick until
he. Brings justice to victory.
And in his name, the Gentiles will hope so, rather than
retaliating against the betrayal of the humans.
God in Christ absorbs it. Rather than abandoning
unfaithful. People God stays because the God
who speaks. In Hosea is the same God that we
meet in. Jesus, as we read the Gospels
and the cross, is the clearest word that he has ever spoken.
About his character and so. Hosea teaches us that the.
Ultimate reality underneath what the.
Prophets have to say about. Judgment and betrayal and
wandering is not some kind of divine withdrawal.
It's not some kind of distant God.
It's God's relentless love finally revealed in.
Jesus Christ who absorbs betrayal rather than returning.
It and so as we come to the end of the text, I'm going to invite
our worship team back up and I just want to invite you to pause
for a moment and reflect. With a.
Little bit of honesty where your loves might be misaligned right
now, what kind of attachment might?
God be just. Gently loosening, not to punish
you in some way, but to come really.
Close. And to.
Free you. Where are you bruised?
Love that. Where where does your?
Where does your? Flame feel like it's barely
burning, like a smoldering Wick. Like a bruised Reed, Hosea.
Reminds. Us that God isn't surprised.
When we wander away, when we sort of reach for other
attachments, when we look for other things that make us feel a
little bit more secure. God meets us precisely in those
places where our love has. Grown tired and so.
As we prepare to worship, I just want.
To invite you to stand if you're able.
And I want to pray for. All of us together if if you
where faith. Feels thin in some way right
now. I want you to know that you are
not. Disqualified.
From experiencing the love and the presence of God.
If you. Feel conflicted if you're not.
Quite sure where your trust is. You're not alone, and the
invitation is not to fix yourself.
It's not to do better. It's not to make promises that
you're not sure you can keep. It's simply.
To return return your attention, return your affection your.
Trust your love back to the. God, who has never stopped
turning toward you. So.
Come, Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray just as we, as we
worship, as we pray together, that you would be.
Speaking that you would be moving, you'd be giving us
everything we need. You know the intimate.
Details of our lives. You know where we wander, where
we feel insecure, where we feel unsure.
Where our faith is weak, thank God.
I pray that you would come and. You would give.
Each person in this room. Who needs the?
Assurance of your kindness. Taste of that this morning.