Beyond Boundaries: Love Beyond Boundaries Series

Series: Beyond Boundaries

Message #4: Love Beyond Boundaries

By: Jud Wilhite

School started this week. How many of you know someone who started school this week? What is this? Are the parents clapping? Yes, they are back to school! It was a really emotional week for us in our family. My daughter is five years old. She is my oldest. We took her to kindergarten this week. That will mess you up right there. The kids are playing in the playground area before class starts. We’re playing it cool. It’s all good. No big deal. We don’t want to stress her out. Everything was good until right before my daughter walked into class. She turned around, blew us a kiss, and walked in. My wife turned around and the tears just started flowing. At that point I’m starting to cry. It all went down hill from there.

We did the school supplies shopping this week. It hits you in that moment. Time is flying. It wont be long before God willing she’s walking into the door of a junior high. Then high school. When she’s thrity-five she’ll be walking out the door for her first date. That’s what I’m saying. We did the school supplies stuff. I brought her backpack along with me here. She’s real proud of this Hello Kitty backpack. We have the traditional stuff that my wife got for her, note pads, pencils etc. Then there’s some things that I wanted to put in her backpack that Lori wasn’t really down with. I still thought these would have been great items for my five year old’s first day of school. First, a cell phone with Dad on the speed dial on every number. In case you get in trouble, call Dad, and I’ll be there to take care of business. In case she gets lost there’s a little GPS system. If things get crazy on the playground she can bust a flare out. Pop it open and set it down. Just in case some boy comes up to her and says he loves her – it’s an air horn that’s ozone safe. Hit it and the boys run away. That’s what I’m saying. Anyway…Lori didn’t go for it. But I thought it would have been a cool thing to pack all that in the backpack and send her off for the first day of school.

School started and when you think about life, school doesn’t end when you get out of school. Does it? All of life is a school for us. We are always learning. Whether you graduate from high school or you graduate from college in the midst of all that life is the school where hopefully we learn the most important lessons on living well. That’s what I want to talk to you about today. We’ve been going through the book of Hosea. It’s a book tucked away in the Old Testament. Hosea was a prophet for God to people. It’s really interesting in the book as we looked at Hosea in his marriage relationship with his wife. She’s unfaithful again and again. God uses it as a picture of His love for us and of His relationship with us. That’s how the book of Hosea flows through the first three chapters. You get to chapter four and the tone and tenor of the book changes. From chapter four to fourteen at the end we don’t hear a lot about Hosea and his wife anymore. The picture of God changes. It moves from this metaphor of a relationship of marriage between God and His people to a metaphor of a father who loves and cares for his kids. That’s how the shift changes in the book of Hosea. We get to the very last verse in chapter 14:9: “If you want to live well [How many of you want to live well? I’m in for that.] Make sure you understand all of this. If you know what’s good for you you’ll learn this inside and out. God’s past gets you where you want to go.” He’s saying if you want to live well then you have to learn this inside and out.

We say, “Well, what is this?” I’m in. I want to live well. That’s all good. What is it I’m supposed to learn inside and out? What am I supposed to really grasp to live well? To learn that you have to go back and look at the latter part of the book. Learn the lessons from the book of Hosea on who God is and how He can move in your life. Learn the lessons of His love in your life. Then you’ll be able to live well. Let’s go back and pull some lessons from the school of life in the book of Hosea so that we can live well.