We are in a throw back series, I mean you know the first clue, the disco ball, the platform shoes, the tie dye, the Cyndi Lauper song but really all of those things are just a throwback of the last 20-30 years. This series we are in, it’s really like a couple 1000+ throwback where we are looking at the lives of those who have sort of gone before us and looking at their faith journeys. Their faith journeys by the way that were recorded for our benefit to enrich our lives, to teach us, to give us hope and encouragement. I mean this is what the new testament says about all of these old testament stories or lives that we are going to be looking into which began this last weekend.
Romans Chapter 15, verse 4 about the new testament about the old testament: Such things were written in the scriptures long ago to teach us and the scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled and so we expect today to be taught something, to be filled with hope, to be encouraged, as we look at the book of Hosea, the life of Hosea, and we are going to get to that in just a moment but first I would like to share with you a modern day story. It’s a story about a young man 16 years old who is unusually called of God at the early age, that’s not typical of that age where someone is called of God into full-time ministry but he has a strong sense of that and so he begins to plot his life accordingly and he lives faithfully with God. He’s an example to his friends of what it is to be faithful, particularly at that young age and then when he goes on into college he sets the example again as he just has this life that emanates love for God and love for Jesus Christ and he goes on then to seminary to get his theological training. He graduates from there and at the age of 27 is offered a job at a small church in Toledo to pastor about 100 people. So he takes this job and it seems to b the perfect fit for him and then he begins to think about another stage in his life and that would be marriage.
He is 27, single, he has been saving himself for the right woman and he thinks he knows who it is. There is one woman in the church who he has had his eye on and he’s going to work up the courage to ask her out but before he works up the courage to do that, he has this dream, a rather bizarre dream. In this dream, God speaks to him and tells him to go downtown Toledo to a specific street corner where he will see a prostitute and he will actually know her name, God has given him the name of this prostitute and he is to get down his knee before her and ask for her hand in marriage. Now this is a really bizarre dream. It’s a very strange what I would call leading from God. In fact, if somebody were to come up to me and say hey Lee, I had this dream and God is telling me to go and marry this prostitute downtown, I’d say maybe you took something before you went to bed that you shouldn’t have or you want to check your sources because I’m sure God didn’t say that. I mean I’m not the ultimate judge on leadings from God but I’m pretty sure this is not a leading from God. But this 27-year-old man out of seminary, he is absolutely sure that God has led him to do that and he took days and prayed about it and in fact God spoke it to him again in a dream so he did it. He gets in his car, goes downtown Toledo, goes to the street corner God tells him to go to and there is this woman. He knows her by name, he gets down on his knee and he proposes to her and amazingly she accepts.
Now, this would be the talk of the church, wouldn’t it? I mean this is like reality TV waiting to happen. This is good stuff and it goes well. That is to say the church is initially shocked but after they get over that, they observe this pastor and his wife, this former prostitute, and they observe them in their devotion one to another and they watch as they have children and some eight years later, they are a picture of a great marriage, three children but then things fall apart, completely apart. This woman who has been brought out of this pit of a life, who has devoted herself to her husband for eight years and her children, he has devoted himself to her. She goes back to prostitution, same street corner, same pimp. Can you imagine the heartache of this pastor now 35-years old, after he does this crazy thing, he proposes to a prostitute he doesn’t even know, he learns to love her and to love her deeply, to devote himself to her and then she goes back to where she came, to prostitution. Imagine what’s going on inside of him and what is happening inside his gut and his heart. I can’t imagine. I’m sure his heart was torn in pieces.
And if the story isn’t am already crazy enough, God speaks to him again and this time God says now I want you to go back downtown. You will find your wife on the same street corner and I want you to take her back. In fact, buy her back from the pimp...and he does. And then here’s the little caveat that’s really hard to swallow but God says I want you to love her just as you loved her before. It’s as if God is saying I want you to love her as if nothing ever happened.....same devotion, same love. Crazy story isn’t it.....outrageous!
True... is it? Well it didn’t happen in 2009 to a young pastor in Toledo but it did happen a few thousand years plus ago to a prophet named Hosea. He was just beginning his ministry when God gives him this outrageous leading.
Here’s how it goes. Hosea Chapter 1 verse 2:
When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea and God would speak through these men and they were called prophets, God said to him, go and marry a prostitute and then he actually names her. Get this...this is for us to note. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other Gods so God is telling us he is asking Hosea or commanding Hosea to marry this prostitute so it illustrates something for us and when we get into the story, we begin to see the illustration in living color. In fact, we can even place ourselves in the story, each one of us. Who do you think we would be in the story so far? I mean there aren’t very many characters revealed here. Are we the nation of Israel collectively. We are the body of Christ, his children the Bible says, so I think that would be fair to say. Hosea represents God and then individually who are we in the story. We are the prostitute.
See after bowing our knee to Jesus Christ and saying he’s our ALL in ALL, and then we go back to that place from where we came that is as if God were absent, we are prostituting ourselves and it’s not like we are so obvious about it. Some people don’t even know we are in that state, we’re very sophisticated in the way that we do it. I mean we still say God is it with our words but, our lives don’t necessarily reflect it. Our schedules don’t say it. Our bank statements are no indication of this love for God and what does God do when we prostitute ourselves, when we go back to that from which we came? What does he do? What’s his response. We read about it in Hosea Chapter 3 verse 1. Listen to what God says to Hosea after his wife goes back to prostitution.
Go and love her again even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel even though the people have turned to other Gods and love to worship them. This is incredible. This is like off the charts outrageous love. It illustrates God’s love for each one of us but I think it also illustrates something else that God wants us to get. I think it says something about what’s going on in the heart of God when we are disobedient, when we are wayward. Whether initially before we commit ourselves to Christ, or after we have committed our self to Christ and we go backwards.
What does it do to the heart of God? Well let me ask you a question, what do you think was going on in Hosea’s heart after he had devoted himself to this woman, he had given her his love, he had sort of brought her out of this pit, has three children with her and now she leaves him, she goes back to being a prostitute. What do you think is going on in his heart? I think it is safe to say similar things are going on in the heart of God and I think this story, I think that’s part of the takeaway for us today. That is we are to get a sense of what goes on in the heart of God when we are wayward.
Do you think God is like this stoic immovable being that is not moved emotionally, that he doesn’t have emotions? Of course God has emotions. The Bible is very clear about that. Listen to what the Bible says in Hosea Chapter 11, verse 8: Get this, God says, my heart is torn within me and my compassion overflows. I think that’s part of the takeaway of this story, otherwise you know what, God could have just said like he does in the ten commandments, thou shalt have no other gods before me because that’s where we are getting to, isn’t it? You know you’ll have no graven images, no idols. I mean God one and only , isn’t that what we are getting to in this story, you can tell that is what we are getting to. God could have just said it. He wouldn’t have had to tell the story, he wouldn’t have had to ask Hosea to do this absurd thing to illustrate his outrageous love. He could have just commanded us to follow him and him alone but instead he gives us this living illustration of his own brokenness, his broken heart, I think to draw us in.
My wife and I, when we’ve had our differences and we have, at times I have hurt her, there have been times when she has sat me down and looked me in the eye, sometimes with a tear in her eye and just very quietly said to me, what you did hurt me, what you said hurt me. And when my wife communicates to me like that it draws me in to her and I think that is what God is doing in the book of Hosea. I think he is communicating to us in such a way that this story that he gives us, this absurd thing, this outrageous thing he asks Hosea to do and then his illustration or his response to this, his amazing, outrageous response, I think it’s to draw us in.
I was a little concerned giving a talk on this book because the story is so profound and then how do I take this profound story and help you make application to your life. What if I miss the target? I was talking to Kyle about this this week, we were talking about the burden of communicating, of preaching, of opening the books of the Bible and communicating to you week in and week out and this burden we carry to get it right and to be able to give you life application and so I’m not sure, I was telling Kyle, I’m not sure if I can do this book justice, but I will give it my best. But I think there are some things we can say that this powerful, this outrageous illustration calls us or draws us into and the first of those three things, the first is fidelity. This powerful, this outrageous illustration calls us to a life of fidelity with God.
Now if you want to know what fidelity looks like, just ask yourself the question, what does infidelity look like? We know what that looks like. That’s where a couple stand at an alter before their family and friends and before God as their witness, they pledge life long devotion one to another. They vow one to another, they pledge to each other a love that will be reserved just for each other and no one else. And while they will have other relationships in which they deeply love people, there will be a special love that is only for them, for each other. They are pledging fidelity, one to another so infidelity is when that is violated. When that love that is reserved for the one is given to another. That’s infidelity and the pain of infidelity, it’s almost unbearable. I’ve had people sit across from me and tell me their story of their heart being ripped out. So now we know what infidelity looks like, what does fidelity look like?
God calls us to fidelity. Hosea Chapter 13 and 14, listen to what he says: You must acknowledge no God but me for there is no other Savior, stay away from idols. So there is no other god, no other Lord, no other Savior, no one else that can save us and then stay away from idols he is saying. Those things that we give a sort of devotion to that only God deserves or a worthiness that only God deserves.
I’ll never forget a talk I heard, a pastor was talking and he said this to other pastors, he said the problem with some of you pastors is you love ministry more than God. Ministry has become your idol, that which you do, your work. I thought, man it’s true, it can be me. I’ve been in that place where God sort of gets displaced. My self worth comes from what I do and not from God himself and we are to get our self worth from God, not what we do. Only God should be where we put our hope and confidence and total trust in...only God...and when we do anything other than that, it’s a form of idolatry or infidelity.
I will tell you another way that you can sort of do a gut check, what about your money, where does that go? That says something about where your heart really is, where your love and devotion really is. People don’t like it when pastors talk about money, you know why I think it’s so uncomfortable talking about money? I think its because while other calls to action or other kinds of service, it’s hard to measure that this person loves God because they do this or that. You know it’s really hard to say. But money has this sort of numerical value where a number is on it, so we don’t like to talk about money in relation to what it says about what’s going on in our heart because it may say a lot.
Here’s what Jesus said, Matthew chapter 6 verse 21: Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will be also. Desires, desires that are reserved for God. Is God your treasure and does your money illustrate that, where it goes? So what do we do when we violate this covenant between us and God, this trust, this fidelity? When we commit infidelity. Well the Bible is pretty clear about this, Hosea Chapter 14, verse 2: You see this in the old testament and the new. Bring your confessions and return to the Lord and what he is just and righteous and faithful and he will forgive us, the Bible says. So this story certainly calls us to a life of fidelity, and then this powerful, outrageous illustration secondly calls us to a life of wholeheartedness, wholehearted faith.
Is anything that is half hearted good? Any time a person is half hearted, is it ever good to be half hearted? Do you want a half hearted co-worker, about a half hearted boss? About a half-hearted spouse in regard to your marriage. How about a half-hearted teammate? Is it ever good? It’s never good to be half-hearted about anything or at least it seems. What did Jesus call us to...wholeheartedness...Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your strength, all your soul, all your mind, all of yourself. What’s the Bible say in Hosea? Hosea chapter 10, verse 12, listen to this:
Plow up the hard ground of your hearts and my hope for you is that this story plows up your heart, turns things over in your heart, reveals things that you didn’t even know were there, or that this story stirs something up inside of you that draws you to a deeper level of commitment.
Hosea chapter 10, verse 12, after he says plow up the hard ground of your heart, for now is the time to seek the Lord. That’s what wholeheartedness is or that’s where it is discovered, it’s in this pursuit, pursuing God, it’s in making a commitment and following up with that commitment. In fact, I would say this, wholeheartedness sort of begets wholeheartedness. The Bible in Romans Chapter 12, verse 1 after eleven chapters of what I would call deep theological teachings in the Bible, perhaps the deepest, most theological book that you can read in the new testament, the most profound, some of the greatest Christian truths contained in those eleven chapters, after reading those or you could say today after hearing the story of Hosea, what’s the right response: And so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he’s done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. This wholehearted devotion to God and as I said, devotion, wholeheartedness begets wholeheartedness.
2 Chronicles, Chapter 16, verse 9, "the eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. So it’s when we commit to God, when we become wholehearted, it’s as if he just energizes us and gives us more of the same, the capacity to be wholehearted. He strengthens us, he satisfies us. He gives us purpose and peace. You know one of the measurements of wholeheartedness could be some of the words that come out of your mouth because the words that come out of your mouth reveal what’s in your heart and people can tell what you care about by what you talk about.
This week I had a couple of pastors, local pastors, in my office and I was helping them with outreach and how to do outreach, kind of the way we do it. Anyways it was pretty obvious to them, there were a couple of things I care about deeply, one is the Dallas Cowboys, the other is the Buckeyes because they could see, I have this picture of the Dallas Cowboys stadium, actually it’s not a picture, it’s a piece of turf from Texas Stadium from their last game which unfortunately they lost and I told these guys, I said you know if you touch it, it will change your life and then I’ve got the Buckeyes paraphernalia. I mean I love the Buckeyes and the Cowboys and people know it when they sit in my office that I’m a fan. When people sit in your office, that is when they do life with you, do they have a sense of your wholeheartedness devotion to God? This story, this illustration that God gives us through the prophet Hosea, I mean it calls us, it draws us in to a life of wholeheartedness and then finally it draws us in, it calls us in, this outrageous story to a life of intimacy or relationship.
Listen to what the Bible says in Hosea chapter 6, verse 3: Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us surely as the arrival of dawn or the comings of rain in early spring and so the promise is this, if we press on to know God, he will respond to us, just like you can count on the seasons to change, you can count on God responding or you know you could say when you go to bed tonight you can be certain that when you wake up in the morning, the sun will be shining, well let me correct that, we’re living in Toledo, the sun may not be shining. If you are in Orlando, the sun would be shining but you can count on this, when you go to bed tonight, it will be dark and tomorrow will be daylight and so you can count on God when you press on to know him, he will respond and let me tell you this is sort of the "it" of this whole talk. That is to say that in this pursuit of God and this pressing on to know him, that’s where we experience the life of fidelity and that’s the life of wholeheartedness. It’s in that pursuit of God that we experience that.
Listen to what Hosea chapter 6, verse 6 says, God is saying this to us: I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings. This is powerful. Who is he talking to by the way? This culture that these words are spoken to, I mean he’s talking to people that are very ritualistic, I mean they bring offerings to sort of make themselves right with God, but sometimes never really connecting with God, just thinking the sacrifice they’ve made, that will please God and what God is saying is, listen I want you to know me. I want to be in relationship with you, more than ritual offerings. The songs you sing...great, I want you to know me and so how do we get to know him?
What does it mean to press on to know him more? Where is that place where we encounter God face to face? And this is going to sound like a broken record, or I should say it is going to sound like a scratched record. By the way, do all of you know what a record is...I mean because some of you are probably too young to even know what a record is. It’s this like piece of vinyl, it’s about this big a round and it’s very thin, sometimes its this big a round, has a hole, sometimes has a little teeny hole in it. Anyways, this record would play music and if it got a scratch in it, the needle would get stuck on the scratch and it would just keep playing the same thing over and over and over again, thus we have a broken record, but it’s really not broken is it? It is scratched so it should be called a scratched record. So here’s my scratched record, something that you’ve heard often around here and you will continue to hear it.
In this pursuit of God, if you want to press on to know God, if you want to know him more deeply, I don’t know how you are going to do that apart from immersing yourself in the scriptures, prayerfully immersing yourself in the scriptures. It’s true that God is ever present and people will tell me "Lee I talk to God". Well great I’m glad you pray, prayer is really critically important in this relationship and I’ll say God is ever present and I understand all that but you know it’s like my wife and I, when we go on vacation and we’re just sitting on the beach, we’re in the reclining chairs and we’re holding hands, it’s like we’re connected, I know she’s present and she knows I’m present and that’s wonderful, it’s beautiful, it’s all good but when we really get to know each other is when we face each other, we talk and communicate and have conversation and this is how you see the face of God, this is how you get to know God, it’s through his word on a daily basis. The psalmists talk about meeting God on a daily basis. I mean that’s the rhythm of life and God has put these rhythms into our life and that’s one, if we want to know him, we are going to open this book with frequency.
Hey wouldn’t it be cool if we could make it a little easier for everybody. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was this Bible study for example, this Bible study that tailgates off of this weekend’s talk. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a Bible study like that would help you dig a little bit deeper into this weekend’s talk that would be automatically emailed to you every day? Well we do...if you go to livingitout.tv, you can sign up for a daily Bible study that takes each weekend talk, breaks it down a little more, helps you delve into maybe another passage of scripture to help you think about what you’ve heard, to make application of what you’ve heard. You can go to livingitout.tv today and the Bible study will already be on there. It will remind you of some things that I have just said and we do that with every talk and whether it’s the Living It Out Bible study or not, I’m not particular, I mean we would love everybody to be doing this so that what they hear on Saturday and Sunday sticks with them on Monday through Friday and they haven’t forgotten it by the next weekend. The Living It Out is powerful.
Here is a story, a testimony from someone. Let me just read this to you. It’s very interesting and he’s writing from a very interesting place in life, listen to this.
He writes this: To whom it may concern, this letter is written to let you know (the first paragraph will be up on the screen) to let you know how far your Bible study is reaching. You see I’m in state prison, 6 1/2 months into a 17 month sentence and just finished your Living It Out daily Bible study. On the last page it asked for feedback and I thought this would be an awesome way to give a testimony of what it’s done in my life. Besides reading the word of God it is the highlight of my day, it gives me direction and something to meditate on. It gives me a sense of peace and calm in one of the most stressful situations a person can be in and I would agree with that and then he says this, I cannot tell you the number of ways that God has blessed me while I have been locked up but this Bible study has to be at the top of the list. My mother (who I will leave unnamed) is a regular attender at the Toledo Campus sends it to me. To me he says, my mom is like the woman who put all she had into the offering and although it was not a lot, it was still more than what the rich offered. She truly is a great woman and she would tell you a lot of it has to do with her Cedar Creek experience. And then he goes on to ask if we will dialogue with him about different doctrine in the Bible. He’s trying to understand and we’ve got somebody that’s going to do that and then he closes out by saying thank you in advance my God is awesome, he reigns from heaven above.
I mean what a great story, yes you can applaud, that would be appropriate. This is just one life that is being changed, putting aside the Living It Out, just by this daily meditation on the word of God and reflection.
By the way, we like to sort of check on the tools that we are providing you with and we did a survey here recently where we surveyed some 300 people who were using the Living It Out Bible study and we asked them, this was a random survey. We asked them to give us feedback which they did and we are going to make a couple changes here and there, but here’s what we also asked them, we asked them to sort of plot themselves on the spiritual continuum and there would be four places you could plot yourself on the spiritual continuum, at least in our minds. One would be you are sort of searching, you know you haven’t given your life to Christ, you’re in the search mode. That’s the first part of the continuum, the second part would be growing, you know where you are growing in Christ. The third would be close to Christ and then the fourth where we hope everyone ultimately lands and what we’re about around here, is trying to bring everybody to that place would be Christ centered, where Jesus is the center of your life and your life revolves around him and you are fully devoted to him. What was interesting to me is when we asked the people who are using the Living It Out Bible study to plot themselves on the spiritual continuum, over 75% of them put themselves on the last two. That is close to Christ or Christ centered. I thought wow, so the question is, is the Living It Out, is that the cause for them being there or I think more likely it’s this is the answer. People who are Christ centered and close to Christ, they understand the value of daily meditation in the word of God and they know what it does to them and that is the discipline in their life that has helped them to come to a place of Christ centeredness and so I just can’t urge you enough. I mean this outrageous, powerful illustration where God asks a prophet, tells a prophet to go marry a prostitute, this bizarre sort of story so that God can illlustrate to us after she goes back how much he still loves us inspite of our waywardness. It gives us a measure, a sort of way to see his grace in action. This story it calls us to something, it draws us in to a life of fidelity and wholeheartedness and a life of intimacy in relationship with God. How can it not?
Now, so far I have been talking to those of you who call yourselves Christ followers but there’s another group of people who have never crossed the line of faith. You have not bowed your knee before a Holy God and given your life to Jesus Christ, asked for his forgiveness and I would urge you to do that. I am telling you that God is waiting for you with open arms and he has done something that it too is an outrageous story. It’s love off the charts and it’s pictured on the cross. Jesus Christ crucified on the cross, Jesus Christ shedding his blood for the forgiveness of your sin so that you can be connected to God, so that a relationship that was broken can be established. Hosea talked about this relationship being broken in Hosea chapter 6, verse 7, listen to what he says:
But like Adam you broke my covenant and betrayed my trust. All of us, not just those of you who haven’t given your life to Christ yet, all of us have broken God’s trust, betrayed his trust, broken his covenant, we’ve all sinned and that separates us from God and that separation, it’s that chasm that can’t be bridged apart from something supernaturally happening and something supernatural has happened. God has given us his son, Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21: For God made Christ who never sinned to be the offering of our sins. Some translations say to become sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
This is an outrageous story too, isn’t it? It’s another story, it’s the story of God’s amazing love and grace and then when we trust him, when we bow our knee before God and ask for forgiveness and accept the gift of his son Jesus Christ, what does God do. Here’s what he does, Psalm 103, verse 12: He has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. How far is the east from the west? The east from the west and the two shall never meet. That’s how far they are and that’s what God does with our sin. That’s what he’s done with your sin if you have given your life to Jesus Christ. That’s what he’ll do with your sin if you trust Jesus Christ and accept this incredible gift.
