Invitation to the wilderness
Hosea 2:1-14
Introduction-
Hosea is in the Old Testament between the book of Daniel and the book of Joel.
I want us to look at being in a wilderness experience.
Most every time you think of “The wilderness”, we always think that we have been bad and God is taking us to the woodshed.
If you remember nothing else today, remember that good things can come out of the wilderness.
In fact, this morning I think the Lord could invite you to experience the wilderness and it could change your life forever.
Before we read the text this morning, let me give you some background:
The book has 4 main Characters.
A man named Hosea
His wife Gomer
Rebellious Nation of Israel
God
Hosea’s wife did not think much of the marriage and was selling herself to other man. She had walked away from her husband and from God.
Hosea was the man with the adulterous wife. He was the one who was at wits end not knowing what to do with her, and feeling like God had abandoned him.
Then, there was God:
Gomer blamed God and rebelled.
Hosea was hurt by God not helping in his time of trouble.
2 people in the wilderness for 2 different reasons.
In their situation, God had to work two different ways while they were in the wilderness.
Hosea 2:13-14
These verses are about a rebellious wife Gomer, but also about a rebellious Nation of Israel.
This is the story about the relationship between God and His people.
In this passage, we see God’s pain for His rebellious bride Israel, and His invitation to repent and return to Him.
Jesus offers us a time to speak tenderly and offers us healing and restoration.
He offers not only warnings, but invitation filled with mercy to return to Him.
I think three things can happen in the wilderness.
1. Preparation for what God has for us.
2. Life-changing opportunity
3. Personal Transformation
Psalm 139 tells us that God knows us from the womb.
Before we were even born, God knew us by name.
So from the womb to the tomb, God makes every opportunity for us to get our relationship with Him right.
He will take those:
desert experiences
The wilderness.
The times you feel like God has abandoned you, call it what you want. He will take those times to do something amazing in your life if you will let Him.
Remember when God led Israel from the captivity of Egypt ?
He immediately led them through the wilderness. They cried, they complained, they got angry, they rebelled, but God had a purpose for the wilderness and they were going through it so God could accomplish what He need to do.
There are three questions we ask when we are in the desert or wilderness.
1. How did I get here?
2. What am I suppose to do?
3. When am I getting out of here?
The answer to the last one is simple- I don’t know. You’ll get out when God is through and you have either changed or learned the lesson that God intended you to learn.
How did I get here?
That is different for each one of us.
Doesn’t matter if you blame God, or blame others, or except that you have put yourself here. God wants to accomplish something in your life.
What am I suppose to do?
Trust God and Obey Him
No matter how you got here. Let’s look at what you can do and how we should act when we are at those dry times in our life.
I. Preparation in the wilderness
Wilderness times can cause us to go deeper into a relationship with Jesus or push us away from God.
We hate wilderness experiences, but God uses them.
He will use them to prepare us for what is ahead.
In Deut. 8 (paraphrased)
The Lord led Israel for 40 years in the wilderness to humble them and test them.
To see what was in their heart and see if they were going to be faithful.
In that time, the Lord fed them, provided clothes that did not wear out and trained them.
8:5- “As a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you.”
God is longing to bring us through the wilderness and into the promises of God. To know what is in our hearts.
God doesn’t promise that we won’t go through deserts.
He says that He will take us through them.
What are we suppose to do?
Allow the Lord in. make way for Him to do what He needs to do.
He will meet you in the center of the desert.
He will be with you, and he will prepare you for what he is desiring to do.
Expect God to meet you in the desert. Don’t hid from God, make yourself available.
Illustration (personal)
20 years ago I walked into a Nazarene church burned out from ministry, burned by people, mad at God, mad at people. Ready to throw in the towel and say God you win, I don’t want anything! Just leave me alone!
In the midst of that period of time. That time that I told God, what am I suppose to do now! God showed up!
He told me He would not abandon me,
That He called me.
He would lead me.
And if you are willing, He will do the same for you also.
We hate wilderness. God like it because He can prepare us for what He has ahead of us.
II. Life-changing opportunity in the wilderness
Stop looking at the wilderness as a place you go when you are bad or that God is mad at you.
Some people miss blessings from God because they won’t go to the altar when God is speaking to them because someone might think I’m bad, or that someone would see that God wants to do something in my life and I live life like I have everything under control.
God will take opportunities to get Egypt out of your life. (repeat)
We are so afraid of what people might think that we miss what God is trying to do in our lives.
Instead of running towards Him, we run away from Him.
He is not pointing a finger of disappointment; He is holding His arms out with life changing opportunity.
We don’t chose seasons of wilderness. God does!
Things can be going smoothly and all of a sudden the rug gets pulled out from under us.
A loved ones dies,
A friend betrays you,
You lost your job,
You lose hope,
You find yourself at a unwanted place. Trying to gain your footing!
Trying to get back to normal!
God is saying that normal is not your goal.
Being changed, being transformed into the image of Christ is the goal.
I have to be honest, when I have gone through those times, I like to say that I was always nice and spiritual. Truth is some of it was pathetic and ugly.
I thought God made a mistake and I was mad.
I thought God was picking on me.
I began telling God the things that I have done and all the things that I have given up.
I wanted God to let go.
I wanted my life back.
I wanted it to make sense again.
After I stopped fighting God, after Istopped having a pity party, God showed me that this wilderness time was for personal transformation.
Not that any one thing was bad, but because I told God that I loved him and that gave Him the right to transform my life to the image of Christ.
God was not mad at me, but in fact loved me enough to get involved in my life.
My early understanding of God was all he wanted to take from me. Now I understand the things that He wants to give me.
He want to separate who I was to what he wants me to do now.
I stopped “firing God’ for what he did to “surrendering” to Him what He wants to do.
Once we become transparent, God can do some amazing things!
When we admit our failures, it gives us and others hope that Jesus is big enough to make something out of our lives.
There is freedom in Jesus Christ!
1 Cor. 2:3-5
“I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”
“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
III. Personal Transformation
2 Cor. 3:18- “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. He is calling us to go from glory to glory.”
Wilderness exposes us to God so he can have our heart freely with no barriers and no fear.
We must become living epistles. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We can only minister out of the overflow or the abundance of what is going on inside of us.
The church’s attempt to evangelize without transformation is worthless.
God has a purpose for refining you, but not as silver, I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I will do it, for how should my name be profaned and I will not give up my glory to another.
Closing
Jesus is looking for willing people who say they love Him to pass through the fire into revival.
Be conformed to His image.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, these O God, you will not despise.”
A broken heart for God is irresistible to the Lord!
Altar Call
