The Tender Love of God
I. How do you picture God? When God was first described to you, what were you told about him?
This summer I read a book entitled “Memories of God” by author Roberta Bondi, who is the Professor of Church History at Emory University’s School of Theology. She remembers back to the days of her childhood, and to her first experiences of learning about God at the Forked River Baptist Church in Union City Kentucky.
Every night I would come back for the revival with my great aunts. Brother Smith’s message was always the same, and it was not designed for the easy listening of children. “Sinner!” he would shout. “You are all sinners! Are you ready for hell? Do you think you can keep your sins hidden from your heavenly Father? Don’t you think your heavenly Father knows what you do in secret? Do you think he can’t see into your hearts? Well I’m here to tell you judgement is coming, and it’s coming soon!” He would go on preaching like this for a long time, until finally he switched gears, and started preaching John 3:16. “Yes,” he would say, “You are a sinner! But God loves you. He loved you enough to send his son to die for your sins. Only believe – believe that God loves you, or he’ll send you to hell forever!”
During the alter call, while I sang all the verses of “Just as I am Without One Plea” I would try my best to flee from the wrath to come by believing that my heavenly father loved me – sins and all – Only I could not believe it. How could God love me in spite of my sin, if they were ban enough to make God’s own Son die? (p.23)
Roberta grew up with an image of God that I suspect many of us have been taught at one time or another. God is a stern, Holy Father who tolerates no imperfections or weakness. God looks down in wrath upon the sinful world. God is the stern Father who demands justice – a blood sacrifice for sins. Jesus is the loving Son, willing to pay the penalty and assuage the father’s wrath. If we believe in Jesus, God the Father will tolerate us – for the sake of the Son whom he loves.
If you’re among the many people, like Roberta, who grew up with this image of an angry, vengeful, wrath-filled God who couldn’t wait to punish the world for it’s sins, then I hope this morning to offer you a different view of God of the Bible.
Our Scripture passage comes to us from Hosea, one of the minor prophets in the OT. Hosea lived in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the late 8th century BC. His description of the relationship between God and people one of the most beautiful I have ever heard….
"When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son…
It was I who taught Ephraim to walk…
I took them up in my arms
I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.
I was to them like those who lift infants to their checks
I bent down to them and fed them"
What a beautiful picture of the tender love of God.
Here God is like a Father who carefully teaches his son to walk – gently holding his small hand…
Or a mother who cradles her infant child to her cheek, delighting in the smell of her baby’s hair, the soft touch of her skin, her tiny body cuddled close in her arms.
Here God is not concerned with flaunting his dominance, but delights in watching his child grow… he teaches him to walk… and leads him forward through each step of life with kindness… feeding them, and helping them to grow strong.
God himself defines our relationship to him as family – we are his beloved children, whom he deeply loves.
Hosea points to the story of Exodus as the proof of God’s love…. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and God heard their cries – and out of Egypt he called his son. He raised up a great leader Moses and through him he showed his power, patiently revealing his love and his protection again and again, until the Israelites trusted him enough to let him lead them out of Egypt. With great patience God directed them – not pulling or tugging, but gently leading with cords of kindess and bands of love. He offers them the law, and teaches them to walk with him. He feeds them manna and provides them with water, gently bending down to heal them. When the harsh desert conditions threaten death, again and again he bends down to heal them.
His ultimate concern is for his children – his deepest desire is for their happiness, their comfort, their health their security – all of which he freely offers them if only they will worship him, and accept his loving leadership, his parental guidance, and stay under his protection, and follow him into the promised land.
II. But unfortunately, human relationships are filled with unfaithfulness, betrayal, and rejection. It was not God who rejected his people, but rather they who rejected him. Many times in the desert the Israelites grumbled against God, and once they reached Canaan, they quickly forgot about God.
Before long, the Israelites quickly began to embrace the gods of the many foreigners with whom they shared the land. Perhaps the most well known deity was Baal, the god of the storm, who was believed to be the source of rain and fertility. Meanwhile, as the Israelites ignored God’s leadings, the political climate became hostile, as Assyria threatened to overtake Israel. Instead of turning to God – the God who had protected them in the past – the God who had brought them out of slavery – the Israelites frantically tried to protect themselves, and turned to revolutions and assassinations and foreign alliances, all of which led them further from the Lord.
This image of Israel straying from God, is a beautiful metaphor for sin – how we all turn away from God again and again. God created us in his own image – and birthed us - God loves us, calls us by name, and longs to be in relationship with us. Yet again and again we abandon our loving parent. God offers us love and protection and healing from the hurts of the world… yet like rebellious teenagers we ignore the call of our parent.
Sometimes we run from God….seeking comfort in our own modern –day idols of fertility - whatever new possessions or hobbies or ideologies or relationship that promises us life and success and happiness.
Other times we enter into a much more subtle rejection of God by denying our own identity. Instead of proudly claiming our identity of children of God, created in God’s own image, filled with God’s own spirit, gifted with our own unique talents and strengths…they very children who God loved and proclaimed good…. Instead of claiming this identity, we reject our heritage. We listen to the lies of others who tell us we are weak, inferior, shameful, and worthless. We allow the world to whisper again and again that we are not pretty enough, or talented enough or smart enough. We enslave ourselves to a culture that demands of us a warped kind of perfection that most of us can never attain, and spend out lives constantly trying to prove to ourselves and others that we really are worth something – that we really deserve to be valued.
III. God’s restoration
Yet through all our rejection, God has a heart of love and longs heal us, to restore us to him. "How can I give you up, Israel? How can I abandon you? Could I ever destroy you? My heart will not let me do it! My love for you is too strong. I will not punish you in my anger; I will not destroy Israel again. For I am God and not a human being. I, the Holy One, am with you. I will not come to you in anger.”
What powerful words! I can not give you up. Your sin may anger me… your rejection hurts so deeply… but my love for you is strong… I will not come to you in anger. In Jesus Christ we see the fulfillment of these words.
In Christ our brother, we see one who meets us in our Egypt places… We see again and again in the life of Jesus one who cares for the week and the lowly the outcasts and the lame. And his gentleness reminds us of the love of God, the father who lifted us as a child to his checks, the mother who bandaged our wounds. And slowly we remember, slowly our identity as God’s children is restored.
In Christ, we have one who overturns the moneychangers in the temple and heals on the Sabbath… one who has compassion on our weakness… and yet one who is not afraid to reveals to us our idols, and open our eyes to the one true God.
In Christ we have one who loves us enough to suffer death with us, even by our own hands…so that we might truly see and believe that there is resurrection, and that the God of life has the power to heal even the world’s most fatal wounds.
We began with the question of how we perceive God – but perhaps the real question that we each long to have answered is how does God perceive us? As Christians, the answer is clear. I want you to know that you are a beloved child of God. God loves you – just as you are… and no matter where you go.. what you do… God will never, give up on you, never reject you, never destroy you, never abandon you. You are his beloved child. Whom he longs to embrace & lift to his check. Listen – he’s calling you out of Egypt… look and see that His arms are open wide… Your parent is waiting….longing to love you, to teach you, to have you know him, and experience his great love. Are you ready to come home?
