We’ve heard a lot about legends and legacies this month. Everything from the legends of the Olympics and the legacies they’ve left to the legends of politics like Ted Kennedy passing the torch to the next generation, or Senator Barak Obama becoming the first African American in our countries history to be nominated for President by one of the political parties. We heard about legacies at the Services of Celebration and Resurrection for Charlie Cromley and Ruth Weir on Friday morning. One truth that has been driven home to me through all of this is that we will all leave a legacy. We will all be known in this life and remembered for years to come for something. The question is, what will you be remembered for and is that a legacy worth leaving?
To help us answer that question we’ve been entering the world of Scripture to see how God’s word can guide us in this matter. And what we’ve learned is that what God considers to be a worthy legacy is probably different than what most of us would have considered.
For example we’ve learned that God wants us to be known for loving Jesus more than anything, becoming mighty in the Scriptures, and pursuing holiness. Today we conclude the series with the greatest legend and legacy of all times and it’s not about Michael. The greatest legend and legacy of all times centers around a man named Hosea.
[S] “The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulterous. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.” For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.” [S]
The word of God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
Hosea grew up in northern Israel, the region of Gilead. He was a wealthy bachelor, a man of deep compassion, loyal, and apparently politically astute. He was by what I can all accounts a respected community leader. But more importantly he was someone who loved and obeyed God.
One day the Lord God spoke to Hosea. And it wasn’t what Hosea wanted to hear. God couldn’t be serious. Hosea had to have misunderstood something. Surely God wouldn’t ask someone like him to do such a thing. His friends would ridicule him. His family would disown him. The religious leaders would shun him. After a few sentences I could imagine Hosea putting his fingers in his ears and said, “I’m not hearing this, la la, la, la, la.” I suspect that if Hosea came to you for advice on this you’d most likely respond by saying something like, “Surely you’ve misunderstood. I don’t think God would ask anyone to do that.”
What was it that God wanted Hosea to do that was so controversial? Love. God wanted Hosea to marry a woman, named Gomer. As you can all ready tell by her name, Gomer was not your typical woman. Listen to these words from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures of Hosea 1.2 and you’ll understand. “God said to Hosea, Go and marry a prostitute [New Living Translation] The NIV says, “Go take to yourself an adulterous wife…” God wanted Hosea to provide for, protect, and cherish and commit to a woman who had a history of being sleazy, slept around, sinful, non-committal and unfaithful.
How do you imagine Hosea might have responded? [S] I think he said something like, “No way, Yahweh!” But instead, Hosea obeys and sets out to love a woman who knew little about real love.
Now, how does one go about choosing a mate in this situation? How does one identify which promiscuous woman will make him happiest? How does one go about choosing the right wrong woman to marry? Did he use e-harmony? Did he ask for names from acquaintances? Did he date around? And if so, how awkward is that. I mean what does one talk about on their first date? So, what do you do for a living? What are your work hours? How long have you been in business? Whatever his criteria were, he chose a woman named Gomer. [S]
Hosea proposed and they were married. Over the next several years three children were born. Not one of them fathered by Hosea. Hosea’s fears came true. His wife had been unfaithful to him just like he told God she would, and not just once, but three times!
That was just too much for him to stomach. Hosea kicked her out of the house and out of his life. They separated. Hosea I imagine felt relieved don’t you? “Good riddance” he thought, “now I can get on with my life.”
Not! Listen to what God said to him in 3.1-2, “The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again (she is still his wife), though she is loved by another and is an adulterous. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.”
They’re still married and yet Gomer was shacking up with another man even as God tells Hosea to go get her and bring her back to try it again. And bless his heart. He does. He does it again.
I don’t know about you. But, I’m thinking this is just unbelievable! Who could possibly love someone like this? Who would be remotely willing to give someone who was repeatedly unfaithful another chance like this? Could you? Maybe if the unfaithfulness happened once. But twice? Three times? A fourth? Who could possibly love like that? Hosea? God!
And that’s the point of Hosea’s story. God used Hosea to deliver a powerful object lesson to the people of Israel and to us. [S] Hosea illustrates God’s hessed; God’s stubborn love. God’s promise keeping love. God’s faithful love for unfaithful people everywhere.
The greatest legend and legacy of all time is God and his love. And like any worthy legacy God wants us to make sure it is passed down. .
[S] 1 John 4.7-11 reads, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (NIV) [S]
Randy Frazee, pastor of Pantego Bible Church in Fort Worth, Texas, shared the following story. One day he walked into a gentleman’s office and seeing a picture of a husband and wife on the desk. "Nice picture." he commented. He turned around and looked at the man, and he had tears in his eyes. Randy asked him, "Why are you crying?"
He said, "There was a time in our marriage when I was unfaithful to my wife, and she found out about it. She was so deeply hurt and injured she was going to leave me and take the kids with her. I was overwhelmed at the mistake I had made, and I shut the affair down. I went to my wife in total brokenness. Knowing I did not deserve for her to answer in the affirmative, I asked her to forgive me. And she forgave me.” "This picture was taken shortly after that... So when you see this picture you say, ’Nice picture.’ But, when I see this picture, I see my life given back to me again." [Citation: Randy Frazee, pastor of Pantego Bible Church, Fort Worth, Texas, from sermon preached 6 24 01, "Uncommon Confessions"]
There is nothing like love. There is nothing that compares to loving others. There is nothing equal to loving like God loves. The power of love is incredible. Nothing can stop it. Not even Satan or sin itself. No wonder God wants it to be a legacy that is passed on to every generation in the world.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
God knows it not easy. But neither is it as hard as we think it is.
All we have to do is ask the Holy Spirit daily, “Spirit of the Living God, place the love of God in my heart for this day.”
You do that, and you’ll find yourself being known for the greatest legacy of all times, love. Could there be anything else more worthy and honorable than that?
Altar call for asking the Holy Spirit to do just that.
