A Christmas Love Worth Waiting For Series

Merry Christmas to you all. Find Hosea 3, if you will – page 955 in your pew Bibles. I’m looking forward to tonight’s Christmas celebration with the Cross Church. I hope many of you will join my family and me for a wonderful time.

Centuries before Mary and Joseph, the Wise Men, or the Shepherds … the story of Christmas was written across the pages of the Bible. Our story takes place seven centuries before the appearance of Jesus at Bethlehem. Christmas was predicted, and Christmas is a major turning point in the timeline of the plot of the Bible. Today, we seek the hidden truth of Christmas, concealed in the most unlikely of places – in a story about illicit sex and the God who pursues us. My aim is to place this power of Christmas within your reach.

There are three to four powerful metaphors throughout the Bible to describe our relationship with God. Often, God is seen as a great King who rules over us. At other times, He is a Shepherd, who guides us, His sheep. Still other times, He is a Father loving His children. But in a startling picture, Hosea tells us God is not only our Shepherd and our King, He is also our Husband. You’ll never understand God if you ONLY approach Him as your King, your Shepherd, or even your Father. While each of these biblical metaphors is important to understand the true nature of God… It’s not until you see Him as your Husband that you can understand how intimate and personal your relationship with God truly is.

Today’s Scripture

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.” 4 For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.” (Hosea 3:1–5)

Keep your Bibles open to Hosea as I’ll be asking you to turn to a few passages in the moments to come. All the Hebrew prophets, of course, predicted the coming of the Messiah. Of course, the Messiah would someday come at Christmas.

Sermon Preview

1) Your Relationship with God is a Marriage; 2) Your Relationship with God is a Really Bad Marriage; 3) and The Cost of Fixing Your Marriage

1. Your Relationship with God is a Marriage

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…” (Hosea 3:1).

The word “And” at the beginning of verse one gives you a clue that you’re stepping in “mid-stream” in the middle of an ongoing story. Hosea’s marriage is the backdrop to a larger story. Hosea’s marriage to his wife, Gomer, acts like a walking/talking parable.

God says in effect, “What you see in Hosea’s marriage to Gomer is what you’ll see in My (God’s) marriage to His people.” Now, this entire small book is dripping with passion. And throughout its pages, you’ll see God using the marriage between Hosea and Gomer as a picture of His marriage with His children. Now, we know very little about the prophet, Hosea. We are told his father’s name and only the briefest of details concerning his marriage and their children.

“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 1:2). Hosea did as he was commanded when he married Gomer.

1.1 Your Marriage is a PRIORITY

If you’re married, then your marriage comes before any other human relationship. Your spouse cannot be secondary. Your spouse comes before anyone else. Your wife, your husband, isn’t a vitamin supplement … neither is she/her an “add-on.” Husbands … never can your marriage be a moment where you say, “Oh, yea … I forgot I’m married.” God says, “I’m your husband. You have to understand our relationship as a marriage.” He’s trying to say, “I’m the ultimate priority.” My relationship with you must be the ultimate priority in your life.