Advent: The Uncomfortable Wonder of God's Love

This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

Helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit GrandProquay.org.

God, because everything will confess you.

We want to confess you not through coercion, but because of understanding, and we just say simply, Jesus be the center of it all.

Jesus, you're bigger and better than all of it, and so be at the center of it.

Be the thing that exerts gravitational attraction and gravitational force over everything so it stays in its proper orbit today.

Otherwise, the planets and all the people are gonna fly apart and collide into each other.

Is it any wonder that the book of Colossians says this about you that in him all things hold together?

So, Lord, we've come this far into 2020 because you've held us together.

So, Lord, for that we're grateful.

Now, Holy Spirit, awaken and illuminate what it means to be loved by God so that we have a bigger and broader, deeper, and more satisfying understanding of the love of God when we walk out of this room than we walked in this morning.

Do this from your word, God, and by your spirit and for your glory, we pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

You could have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it, open up to the Old Testament book of Hosea, Hosea chapter three.

If you don't have a Bible, don't sweat it.

It'll come up on the screen here.

And if you're our guest today, let me say welcome.

And you say, hey, what's this?

What's going on down here?

Lighting candles and stuff.

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent.

Advent is a word that means arrival in its simplest form.

And Advent is the four Sundays that lead up to Christmas.

And each Sunday has a theme.

They are hope, peace, joy, and today is love.

And so today I want to talk to you about the love of God.

And I want to talk to you about the love of God in its native environment.

Now, before you check out, now look at me.

When I said the love of God, some of you are just like, I got it.

Okay, God loves me.

No, no.

I yes, God loves you, but you don't understand the way in which God loves you.

Like, I don't know if you know this or not, but if you call our church and get put on hold, you do not hear elevator music, you hear ring of fire by Johnny Cash.

And people have said to me, Why do you do that?

Because what that was on there was creamy and it wasn't any good.

It was terrible.

It's like, woo.

I want you to know that being loved by God is like falling into a ring of burning fire.

And the guy went, You're a strange little man.

And there's also another Johnny Cash song, because by the way, Johnny Cash is like ketchup.

Anything you put him on, it makes it better, okay?

There's another Johnny Cash song called The Boy Named Sue.

And in the song, basically, it's a song about a guy.

His dad named him Sue because he wanted him to be tough.

And he left him nothing but an empty bottle of booze and a guitar.

And it's the song tells the story.

They get to the end, he goes looking for his dad.

He finds his dad, and he and his dad get into a fight in a bar.

And there's a great line in the song, and it says this about the fight.

We were kicking in the gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.

Now, why do I tell you that?

To awaken in you appreciation for Johnny Cash, number one.

And number two, to tell you that that is the native environment for the love of God.

The native environment for the love of God is not in a nice climate-controlled building like you're sitting in right now, where everyone's kind of dressed and showered, but it is in the stink and in the stank of human depravity.

This is where the love of God finds its origin.

And long before, for God so loved the world that he gave us one and only son, God, I want to go further back to where in the Old Testament, Hosea chapter three, I want to talk to you about the uncomfortable wonder of God's love.

The uncomfortable wonder of God's love.

Let's read the whole chapter, Hosea chapter three.

And the Lord said to me, Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethic of barley.

And I said to her, You must dwell as mine for many days.

You shall not play the whore or belong to another man.

So will I also be to you.

For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods.

And afterwards the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.

Now, I said we was gonna read the whole chapter, and some of you are like, oh my gosh, it's only five verses.

But in five verses, God tells the story.

He gives a real textured picture of the love of God, this uncomfortable wonder of God's love.

And I want to point out four or five things from the text this morning.

Number one is simply this that love pursues.

That love pursues.

Look at verse one.

And he says, And the Lord said to me, Go again and love a woman who's loved by another man and is an adulteress.

Now just hear those two words so that go again.

Let your ear be drawn to again, because God told him back in chapter one to go.

He's already told him to go one time and take this wife.

Now, by the way, just a little historicity.

If you're not familiar with the book of Hosea, it's kind of like, oh, it's just some words in there.

I'm not really sure I want my kids to hear.

And I get that.

I got, okay, I got kids.

Mine's 17.

She'll be dropping this word later today.

Well, Dad said this in a sermon, it must be okay.

No, no.

Here's when he says go again, I want you to understand that what God is setting up is this pattern where he is saying to the nation of Israel, to all believers that day, hey, listen, this man's marriage, Hosea is married to a woman named Gomer, and she's kind of got off the race reservation multiple times.

And so when I say love pursues, it doesn't just pursue the pristine people that deserve it, where it makes sense.

Love pursues the people who knew better and did it anyway.

Love comes hot and heavy after them.

Go again and love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress.

Now, what do you mean go again?

Because if you look back to chapter one, verse two, this is the first time God told him to go.

It sounds like this.

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.

Now you're like, dude, you said that word four times.

Would you stop saying that?

This is what I mean when I talk about the uncomfortable wonder of God's love.

Now I want to draw your attention to two words that you may not be thinking about.

You may be like, oh, not that one word.

Look at that verse.

When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, excuse me, the first Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea.

And then just through and to.

Now, anybody that God's going to speak through, Hosea needs to understand.

What you and I need to understand is that his life and his marriage is the medium through which the voice of God finds expression to the people of God.

His marriage was like a megaphone to everybody.

And so God's going to speak through him, so God has to speak to him.

And so you need to understand, God wants to speak through you and me.

So he's going to speak to you and I today.

He says, Now, when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom.

Why?

For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.

Now you may think, go again.

Now, if this is the first time God spoke to you and God says, go, and here's what you're gonna do.

Now, I I don't know about you, but if I'm me, the next time God says go, I'm like, no, thank you.

I'm good.

The last time you said go, it didn't turn out so well.

And so God says in chapter three, go again and love a woman who has loved, has loved another man and is an adulteress.

This is not the first time.

Now, why do I say that?

Because make a big deal out of that, because some of you feel far from God because you repeated things that you said you'd never do.

Not only did you do them, but you continue to do them.

You may be sitting in this room right now going, hey, nobody knows, but I still keep doing the thing that I don't want to do, that I say I don't want to do, but I really do want to do.

It's not addiction.

I don't have an excuse.

It's just delight.

I find pleasure in things that I shouldn't find pleasure in.

And now you've done them so much that you can't see your way back to God, which is why God tells Hosea, go again.

Because love pursues and love repeats itself, and love keeps on pursuing until you realize that where the where sin did abound, the grace of God, the love of God abounded all the more.

And so you got to figure out how to be a man or a woman who is loved by God, and that love shows up in the way you do life.

Love pursues.

So, regardless of how you sit in this room today, I want to say this to you on the authority of God's word, that the love of God is pursuing you.

It's coming hard after you, and he's gonna chase you down, and it's gonna climb any mountain, kick down any door it has to, because love pursues.

Second thing the text tells us is that love establishes a standard.

Look at verse one go again and love a woman who's loved by another man and isn't adulteress.

Even that makes no sense until you read this last part.

Even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, let's get this straight from the get-go.

God says, I'm doing this because I want to burn it into the frontal lobe of everyone who hears this story.

This is not an allegory, this is not a fable, this is a tangible demonstration of how God loves the people of Israel, his people.

That's why he says, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel.

Remember, he said in the first in verse one, he said, Hey, uh, when the Lord first, in chapter one, verse two, when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, he said to Hosea, Go and take this woman as your wife and have children like this.

And here's why: because the the people, the land, everybody that lives there, they've been this way towards me.

And so I'm gonna speak through you, Hosea.

So I've got to speak to you to get you ready for the message that's gonna be delivered to the nation and to everyone that'll come after that.

And so you you may be sitting there kind of thinking, oh, I find this offensive.

Don't find offensive the word whoredom.

Find offensive that you've played the harbit yourself.

See how uncomfortable that is?

Y'all are like, dude, it's Advent, okay?

Be happy.

Come on, what are you doing?

I'm getting down in the mud and the blood and the beer where people live and saying, hey, you know what?

God loves these people.

And so God says, go again.

Why?

Love establishes a standard, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel.

The standard's not unaware of the behaviors, by the way.

The standard doesn't change because, oh, well, I was good, and so I deserve to be loved by God.

Well, I've been bad.

Well, I don't deserve it anymore.

You never deserved it.

No, no, no.

We love him because he first loved us.

You, as you said here, in your natural state of being, are incapable of loving God.

So don't even so get over yourself and don't think, well, you know, I was capable, but I chose not to.

No, no, no.

You're not capable of loving God until you experience and embrace not just that he loves you, but the manner in which he loves you, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel.

Because God loves us not because of our faithfulness, but because of his.

Let me say that again.

God loves us because of his faithfulness, not ours.

It's not that we're faithful and therefore God responds.

No, no, no, no, no.

God loves us not because of our faithfulness, but because of his.

Sometimes we act as if God, if God really knew what we were really like, then he wouldn't love us this way or even at all.

And I just want to say to you that the way God loves you is being demonstrated, and the way God loves me is being demonstrated, put on display in the relationship of Hosea and Gomer.

And just when you think it can't get any worse, God says, Go take this woman who is unfaithful.

And then he says, you know, two chapters later, that was in chapter one.

In chapter three, he says, Go again.

Oh, fasten your seat belts, beloved.

He says, even though you turn to other people, love other things besides God, I want you to go after her, because this is going to be an internal reminder to my people of the way that I feel about them.

Here's the third thing love does.

Love pays the price.

Even though even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, then he says this.

So they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.

Sometimes there's weird things in the Bible, and this is one of them.

You're kind of like, dude, I hate raisins.

I like a prune, but I don't care for a raisin, okay?

I like a fresh grape, can't stand a raisin.

What is he talking about?

The cakes of raisins.

They would make, they would go to these temple prostitutes and these shrines for prostitution as a religious act of worship, and they would eat these raisin cakes because they were an aphrodisiac.

And this is the people of God.

This isn't wayward sinners, you know, that are out there on the street.

This is the people of God that just got tired of God and God wasn't working for them.

They turned their back on God and they would go eat the cakes of raisin and they would hook up with people as an act of worship.

And God says, Hey, even though these people, now by the way, when I hear raisin cakes, I think of fruit cake.

Like this past week, I was in a store and music was played.

It was Mariah Carey's song, All I Want for Christmas is You.

And a lady was singing the song and she's checking me out.

And she goes, I just love this song, don't you?

Don't ask me questions.

This is a transaction, not a relationship.

But she said, I just love this song, don't you?

And I said, No.

Mariah Carey's like fruitcake.

She shows up once a year, and no one really has an appetite for her anymore.

And that just, you don't say that in a little quaint gift shop.

She was like, Oh, I cannot believe you don't love Christmas.

Oh, I love Christmas.

I just can't stand Mariah Carey.

I think she's obnoxious and she's past her prime and she needs to stop.

And get off the pills before she embarrasses herself even more.

Did you see Dick Clark's Rocking New Year?

I mean, come on, a couple years ago, they should have put her in retirement.

And then her friend comes over and says, You don't like Christmas.

I don't like Mariah Carey.

You gotta work here and listen to this all day.

Just check me out and I'll leave.

Well, I want to know why you don't like Mariah Carey because she's not good.

She was good in 1988.

That was a long time ago.

Now she's done and needs to get off the biscuits, okay?

Just stop.

This is gonna get worse.

Stop it.

This is like a buffet.

Take all you want, but eat all you take.

And the lady said, Well, I'm not sure.

I'm gonna check you out.

I said, I'll go buy this elsewhere.

Oh, that'll be 1995.

So when I hear right here that God's people, he says to them, hey, these people, they turn to other gods and they love cakes of raisin.

Yeah, oh well, why is that a big deal?

Because regardless of that, and in spite of that, and because of that, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, love establishes a standard.

The standard is not moved by their behavior.

As the great theologian of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin, says the standard is the standard.

It is the standard because it cannot be moved by anybody or anything.

Thirdly, the Bible tells us that love pays the price.

Now get this fasten your seat belts.

If you're kind of like, ah, you know, he said the W word like six times, and my children are here.

That's yours to explain.

And when you explain it, use your own life.

It'll be better.

Amen?

I just lost you there.

Y'all are like, that's it.

We're going to Lakewood.

It's that way.

Never mind.

It's closed.

Anyway, love pays up.

See, I told you this is more gritty and gutty than you're not comfortable being loved like this.

You want it to be like a Thomas Kincaid painting, just a wash in fake light.

No.

This is kicking and gouging in the mud and the blood and the beard.

Have you ever fought someone to where you're both exhausted and you got each other in the headlock and you're trying to hit each other, and you're just two men sweating and panting on each other.

That's the love of God.

It's got a hold of you and it's not letting go.

And you're out of, you're like, wait a minute, I can't even swing anymore.

And God's just holding on.

He goes, I'm not here to swing.

I'm here just to wear you down.

You get tired of kicking and screaming.

And I'm gonna gouge your eyes out if you don't knock it off.

Oh, God would never do that.

Tell Samson that.

See, God loves you so much that He'll do whatever He's got to do to get your attention.

And He'll do it to you or to someone you love.

You feel that?

We just got serious up in here.

See, love pays the price.

Fast your seat belts.

Verse 2, after all this stuff, go again, love a woman who's loved by another man.

That means she's shacked up with another man.

She's married to Hosea and she's hooked up and hanging out with another man.

And Hosea's got to go down there and ring the doorbell and go, hey, can I have my wife back?

Awkward.

And is it adulterous?

Even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, even though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.

Here, verse 2, the first four words.

So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a leaf of barley.

Love pays the price.

Love pays the price.

Can you imagine the humiliation involved in this?

Let me set the scene.

She is being he didn't buy her from the guy's house where she is being sold on the slave.

Talk about human trafficking.

No one wants her anymore, okay?

No one wants her anymore.

She's lost her value.

Her body is not what it once was.

It doesn't captivate men.

She doesn't walk in papasitas and go to the bar and go, I have a mojito.

And five men go, I'll buy that.

She walks in, they're like, hey, sweep the floor when we're done, old lady.

She's used up past her prime.

No one wants her.

You say, How do you know that?

Because the Bible says, So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a lethic of barley.

You're like, I don't know what that means, 15 shekels of silver, a homer and a lethal.

Get this picture in your mind.

She is, they're selling people, and all of a sudden, next on the block is Gomer.

Okay, we'll start the bidding at five shekels of silver.

And home, and Hosea raises his hand and says, I'll bid five.

And the guy over there goes, I'll give six.

And he's like, uh, seven.

The guy over there's like eight.

He's like, okay, then just ten.

Uh and she's like, uh, and by the way, all he's got with him is 15 shekels of silver and a homework and a lethic of barley.

And so the bidding goes back and forth, and finally the guy's like, and he just says, Let me, I, I, I'll give 15 shekels of silver, a homework, and a lethic of barley.

Now, by the way, for all you Bible nerds that love little fun facts, if you extrapolate out the value, the cash value of a homer and a lethic of barley, it's 15 additional shekels of silver.

So if you have 15 plus 15, that's 30 shekels of silver.

Do you know anybody that's been sold for 30 shekels of silver?

See, sometimes the Bible just winks at us.

It's just one story.

It's not a bunch of little stories, and none of it's wasted ink.

Love pays the price.

Now, here's the thing you have to understand: depreciation is already set in because 15 shekels of silver and a home or in a leafing of barley was half the price for an able-bodied slave.

This is what you paid for a crippled, or somebody that was so old they couldn't work in the fields, they weren't as productive as they used to be.

Depreciation has set in.

And he takes her back anyway.

If you can imagine that, then open up your mind and imagine this.

Imagine his friends.

See him at Starbucks.

So, how's the marriage?

Any regrets?

You got virus remorse?

You're checking her phone when she goes to bed to make sure she's not getting off the reservation.

You got a tracking device on her minivan, and he's just sitting there blowing into his coffee, and he just looks at his friends and says, So I bought her.

I mean, how do you feel about things?

So I bought her.

It's a humiliating, humbling thing to live like this, to sin tremendously and know that you deserve punishment, and instead you get payment.

Let me say that again.

It's a humiliating thing to live like Gomer.

To just put yourself out there to anyone that'll pay you attention and to violate everything you said you believed, and then to realize you deserve punishment.

And then there's a guy in the crowd who raises his hand and says, I'll take her.

You don't know anybody that deserves punishment and got payment, do you?

Can you imagine the thoughts that went through his head?

He wakes up in the middle of the night having a nightmare, looks over, she's sound asleep, mouth breathing.

And he's like, Why are you so comfortable?

Why am I the one on pins and needles?

You're the one that sinned in this relationship.

What are you doing?

Because when the love of God finds you and unwinds you, and you stop lying and covering up and pretending you sleep better at night.

He's the one now that's got got issues.

But love pays the price.

Here's the fourth thing the Bible tells us that love is mutual.

Look at verse 3.

Verse 3, and I said to her, You must dwell as mine for many days.

You shall not play the whore or belong to another man.

So will I also be to you.

Hear it again.

And I said to her, he didn't put her under the rules of the law.

He said, You must dwell as mine for many days.

You shall not play the whore or belong to another man.

Semicolon, so will I also be to you.

In other words, I'm not asking you to be to me anything I'm not willing to be to you.

And so, unless you, unless, unless you can't fill in the blanks this morning, let me fill them in for you.

God is not asking you and I to be to him anything that he's not being to us.

Because love is mutual, the foundation of covenant love is.

It's not obligation.

It's not duty.

It's mutuality.

So will I also be to you.

Can you let that in this morning?

You're like, well, you seem pretty excited about it, but I don't know if it's that big of a deal.

It's bigger than you can ask or imagine.

Here's why.

It's infinitely more important that we have the capacity for this today, to let this in, to not let this in, but to savor this as we let it in.

Because here's what we do: we imply and then we apply to ourselves things that aren't true.

What do I mean?

We look around, we see our behavior, we know what we're really like, and then we start uh making it's called implicational thinking.

We think, well, this, I think this way, this is probably how God thinks about me.

This is probably what God thinks about me.

I mean, I think this, I know this.

So, how could he not think this?

Because he knows everything.

And so we imply these thoughts and then we apply them to ourselves and to God.

And God's like, No, I I I I bought you.

I bought you, and all I'm asking you to do is be to me who I've been to you.

And God says, I'll go first.

After I bought you, you're gonna be this way.

And by the way, so will I also be to you.

Because the basis of covenant love is not duty or obligation or even guilt.

Hey, I bought you, you owe me.

No, no, no, no, it's mutuality.

So will I also be to you.

I'm not asking you to go first.

I went first.

Yes, he knows.

And he knew you would turn to other people and other things and cheapen yourself in your own eyes, and you would think at this point doesn't really matter.

I mean, I've come so far.

The issue is it, does it matter?

The issue is you matter, and because you matter, any it connected to you matters to God.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

Just because you stopped being who you once were to God doesn't mean he has stopped being who he's always been to you.

Let me say that again, and I'm gonna show you something in the Bible.

Just because you've stopped being who you used to be to God, because if you're not careful as you get older, you look back and you think, yeah, there was a time that this really mattered to me.

This whole God and Jesus and church and Christianity in the Bible, but man, I kind of I just want to say to you, just because you've stopped being who you once were to God doesn't mean he stopped being who he's always been to you.

You say, What do you mean?

This is what I want to show you in the Bible.

I want you to see this.

After God says, for the child, verse four, for the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods.

This is right up there with raisin cakes.

You should think, what in the world is he talking about?

Now look again.

This is after verse 3, where he's told them, so will I also be to you.

Verse 4, for the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince.

We'll just break it down.

You'll dwell many days without king or prince.

Translation, you will not look to people and politicians for your security.

You'll look to me.

You don't know a generation or a culture that's looked to a politician for their sense of security, do you?

Nothing new under the sun, beloved.

He says, You're gonna dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar.

Well, this gets worse.

You know what sacrifice and pillar was?

These people who got up in the morning to go to go to worship, and they're like, it's so far down there to the temple.

You know what?

We're just gonna stop right over here because just right down the road from my house is this shrine to this false God.

I can make sacrifices there.

And I mean, these people they don't believe in the God of the Bible.

This is the false God, but it's so much more convenient than the kids can, we can get a brunt and get to the kids' soccer game.

It's so much more convenient.

And they sacrificed on these pillars and these, these, these high places.

And God says, You're gonna dwell with me without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household god.

What's that?

Ephod was a garment.

It's like a shirt.

A linen ephod is what the priest wore.

And these household gods, they'd use these little idols to kind of discern the will of God.

They'd get up every day and read the horoscope of the newspaper, be the modern-day equivalent, and try to discern what God had in store for them.

This is the way they lived their life.

They didn't just not turn their back on God, they didn't just turn from God, they turned to other things.

They were the adulterers, they're the one that committed spiritual adultery.

And God says to Hosea, Hey, you go take your woman back.

Because I want Israel to know from this time and forevermore that I'm the God that paid the price to woo them back to me and say, Hey, no, no, no, I'm not asking you to do anything I don't to be to me, anything I'm not being to you.

And then the last thing, love comes back to what it was created for.

You still with me?

Have I made it awkward yet?

I'm not trying to make it awkward.

After the first service, somebody was like, Whoo, whoo.

You got words for that?

No.

Woo! Yeah, of all the emotions, passive aggression is my favorite.

I'm just telling, I'm gonna talk about the love of God the way the Bible does.

Look at verse five.

It gets worse afterward.

Underline the word afterward.

Afterward.

If you got kids going through something right now, just look at them and go, hey, afterward.

Just you want to see something interesting, you want to understand the love of God?

Look at all the times Jesus said to people like Peter.

Peter's like, hey man, Jesus, all these people, they're gonna turn their back on you, they're gonna deny you, not me, man.

I'll die for you.

Jesus put his hand on his shoulder and said, Peter, Satan has asked me if he could sift you like wheat.

And I'm praying for you.

Hear this.

After you've turned, strengthen your brothers.

Because you see, we afterwards we don't talk the same way.

We don't think the same way.

Afterward, the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king.

Hear this, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.

He says they'll come in fear to two things.

Number one, to the Lord.

Now we can let that one in.

We got, oh, God loves me, God always loves me, I can always come back.

But here's the one we disqualify ourselves from his goodness.

He says they will come in fear to the Lord.

Okay, well, he's God.

He God loved me unconditionally because he said he would.

But here's the one we disqualify ourselves is coming back in fear to his goodness.

We can't get our head around this.

Why?

Because we're like the prodigal son.

Remember the prodigal son goes out and just wrecks it, puts it, I would say puts it in a ditch, but it's worse.

This Jewish boy puts it in the pig pen.

And he has this moment where he comes to his senses and he says, How many of my father's hired men have more than enough food to spare?

And he gets up and he goes back to his father and he memorizes his speech on the way back.

Remember that?

He says, I will get up and I will go back and I will say to my father, Father, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired men.

And the father ain't having none of that nonsense.

The father is like, Quick, get the ring and the robe and some sandals.

The son of mine was dead and is alive again.

You can die and you're still his son.

You can die and you're still his daughter.

So you've got to figure out how to live as a son or daughter of God, not as a sinner that just likes to sin.

We're like that when it comes to the goodness of God.

God says right here in Hosea chapter 3, verse 5, and they will return in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.

Hosea 3:5

They'll come back to the Lord and His goodness.

Now, Moses back in Exodus got a little liquored up on adrenaline and he said to God, Show me your glory.

God said, You can't see my glory and live.

It'll kill you.

It's overwhelming.

But I'll have all my goodness pass in front of you.

And Moses came down off that mountain and his face was glowing.

People couldn't look at him.

They're like, Whoa, dude, what's up?

Like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer on steroids.

Tune it down a little bit.

This is the goodness that God says you're gonna come back to.

David said, I did a funeral yesterday in my hometown.

Went and buried my cousin.

Uh drove back last night, listened to country music and drank coffee all the way.

That's why you're getting this today.

And at the funeral, nice people, good people, love those people, grew up with them.

This older lady came over to me and she said, Neil.

And I said, Yes, ma'am.

She goes, I knew you when you lived here.

Yeah.

Does God have the power to change people or what?

And he put it on my shoulder.

She goes, Yes, he does.

But here's the part that made me crazy.

Somebody we were talking about the we sit around in the funeral.

I mean the program they printed the 23rd Psalm.

And this guy standing beside me was reading it.

Just I mean, just and he just he read it like a preacher.

He read it, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

And I wanted to take him and throw him in the hole.

That ain't good.

I'm sitting there, I gotta, I'm doing the funeral.

I'm not, I'm just like, ah, because his knees didn't buckle when he got to this part.

He read the whole thing.

He was just reading over and go, I love this.

And I love it.

He's reading it.

He got to verse 6: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

And he read it like a preacher, not like a broken down prostitute who sold herself, committed adultery, and depreciation had set in.

Surely goodness and mercy.

And I was like, oh, can I hit him in the face about three times?

Wouldn't you want to be at a funeral where a preacher punches another one?

Just be once before you die.

So you could just say to your wife and kids, you won't believe what happened today.

You know how I was complaining about putting on that coat and tie your mom made me wear?

Whoa! A bar fight broke out.

And they were kicking and the gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.

He didn't read it and go, surely, oh God, surely.

I mean, despite the fact I don't deserve it, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

I didn't find it, it found me.

So here's a problem with us understanding this.

We think mercy is God responding kindly to something we've done.

Well, the Lord, Lord, have mercy.

Lord, please, Lord, I appeal to your mercy.

Here's the problem with that insufficient understanding of mercy, okay?

Hear this if you hear anything.

That's insufficient and unbiblical because in order for you to have mercy from God, you have to sin.

That's not the biblical definition of mercy.

Mercy is expressed in Psalm 23, verse 6, is God initiating kindness as a demonstration of who he is.

Psalms 23:6

You don't have to sin to experience this.

Mercy is love-informed zeal towards the one he loves.

Let me say it there again.

It is love-informed zeal towards the one he loves.

And his love is not blind to that which makes it all the more unbelievably good.

And so you just have to ask yourself this question this morning.

What would it look like for goodness and mercy to follow you all the days of your life?

I just wanted the guy to burst into terror, at least we moved, or at least get get get get wet eyed or something.

Surely goodness.

And just look at me and go, you know what?

That's been true of my life.

I don't, I mean, I just have the words that I don't know you.

What's your name again?

Neil, oh man.

Whoa, man, hold me up.

I think I'm going down.

Instead, he read it like a poet.

Surely goodness and mercy.

Thank you, Lord.

And I wish I had a bat so I could just beat him like a pinata until candy came out.

And I didn't say any of these things, I just thought them.

And not because I don't like that person, I'm sure he's a nice guy.

I do not know him, but because I understand goodness and mercy.

And God says in the latter days they will come in fear.

They will come in fear to the Lord.

And they'll come in fear to the goodness of God.

Now, why would you come in fear to the goodness of God?

It's what Peter says when Jesus is the disciples turn to walk no more, and Jesus says, You don't want to leave, do you?

And he says, Where else are we going to go for the words of life?

And all of a sudden he pops up.

Like my friend here who just popped up from her nap.

Are you okay?

You doing good?

Yes, you're doing good.

Tell me your name.

Aaron.

Aaron.

Do we know each other very well?

Not really, do we?

Do me a favor, Aaron.

Would you hold this microphone here?

Put that Bible down.

Would you stand up?

Oh, relax, relax.

I know you're like, please, I'm not gonna embarrass you.

You're like, too late, too late for that.

Now, when I talk about the goodness of God, do you have any idea what I'm talking about?

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Now, if I talked about the goodness of Neil, would you have any idea what I was talking about?

Somewhat by some stories you've told.

By some stories you've told.

But that's not experience.

Here, do me a favor.

No, no, no.

You hold the mic.

You're not done.

Hold up by throwing people here.

Everything you say.

Hold your hand out.

What's your tattoo say?

Julie.

Julie, is that your daughter?

My grandmother.

Your grandmother.

Very cool.

That's like in memory of your grandmother, right?

Yes.

Let's not think about that.

We'll both cry.

Now, your name is Aaron, right?

Yes.

Now, Aaron, if I this is just an illustration.

You're not getting anything, okay?

Uh, by the way, if I put one of those in your hand, what would you think?

Okay, well, if we put more in your hand.

Oh, be still, be still, be still.

We'll just.

Now, what would you think?

What are you doing?

What am I doing?

It's a little awkward, isn't it?

Can I confess something to you?

This week, as a lady used to go to our church, she moved like eight states away up in the northeast, and she sent me a Christmas card.

It had my name on it and the church's address.

And I thought, oh, that's very sweet.

She sent me a Christmas card.

Wasn't thinking anything.

I opened up the Christmas card and a check fell out.

And I looked down and I just like, oh my gosh, I saw the number on the check, and I was like, what a friend we have in Jesus! And then I looked closely at the check, and it was made out to the church for the new building.

So don't you look at this?

By the way, if you're wondering where I got this, out of my wife's jewelry box.

She saves everything, Christmas money, birthday money her parents gave her eight years ago.

I'm like, the Bible says in James 3 about not let your gold get rusty, woman.

Spend that.

That's my money, not anymore.

So anyway, we're just making a point here, okay?

You have any idea what's all in your hand right now?

No.

No?

No.

Do you realize that the more I put in there, the more awkward it feels?

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

The goodness of God is that way.

And what I want you to understand is that God wants to be so good to you.

I'm not gonna be this good to you, but God wants to be so good to you.

Let's don't get it twisted, sister.

God wants to be so good to you that it is awkward that you never want to come back.

Matter of fact, you come to it in fear.

That you're kind of like something happens, you're tempted, you're like, you know what?

There's no way that could be as good to me as God is.

So, have you kept up?

Have you been counting?

With which part?

Here, let's let's I don't want you to be tempted.

No, put your hand out here.

I want you to tell me, you know, feel what that weighs like in your hand?

Yes.

Yes.

Now, when you think about that, what do you think?

What does that say to you about me?

You're trusting.

No, it's better than that.

No, it's better than that.

I have goodness in me, and today I want you to have it.

Yes.

Yes.

And look at me.

I don't want you to put it in those wooden boxes over there.

That money's already been tithed on.

I know how you religious people think.

I'm gonna give this to the Lord.

No, no, you see these people right all around here.

Look at them.

Look at them.

They can't wait till the service is over.

They're gonna run and go, oh, God's been so good to me.

I'm not gonna steal from God.

So I don't know you.

Do I?

Have I been to your house?

Have you been to my house?

No, did I talk to you before the service?

So my goodness to you is uncaused.

There's nothing in you that makes me be good to you today.

True?

True.

How do you feel right now?

Overwhelmed.

Here's what I'm saying all this for, okay?

Because when I was driving home last night from East Texas, the Lord's like, hey, what do I want you to do tomorrow?

I was like, are you sure?

My wife might miss that money.

She won't miss it.

She doesn't ever spend it.

Don't tell me how old you are.

You're never supposed to ask a woman that.

But for the rest of your life, I want you to live every day believing that the goodness of God is so good that you should fear missing out on it.

Fair enough?

All right, sit back down.

Don't give that away.

Get another tattoo if you want.

They're expensive.

You don't get one.

Now, if you're visiting today, I'll just stay down here and be done.

Y'all, if you're visiting today, you're just thinking, does he do that every Sunday?

Because I'll be back.

Sit on the aisle.

No, look at me.

We're done.

We got to get out of here.

Look at me.

God says in the latter days, after.

He says, they'll come back to me, the Lord, and to his goodness.

The Lord and his goodness.

That's what you were created for.

This is why God loves you the way God loves you.

He said, burn it into your frontal lobe.

No one's gonna be as good to you as I am.

Stop being a goofball.

Stop going after the raisin cakes.

Stop committing spiritual adultery with a bunch of nonsense.

And come back to the Lord and his uncaused goodness.

Let's pray together.

God thinks that your love for us is uncaused.

There's nothing in us that makes you love us.

That's why it's uncaused.

You loved us first when it didn't make sense.

We sold ourselves, we depreciated in value, and you came down there to the auction and you paid for us.

Now you didn't have cheap things like silver and gold, but the imperishable blood of a lamb without spot or blemish.

Put him up on your shoulders and said, I don't have barley or silver, but I got a son.

This is why the love of God is so stinking uncomfortable.

And God, we want to ask your forgiveness as the church in America for making it sweet and pristine for all the good people that deserve it.

Nobody deserves it.

Me at the top of the list.

The goodness of God is uncaused.

And it's a reminder of the love of God.

That's why the Bible says, see, see with what great love the Father has loved us.

Thank you that you loved us with a great love.

Not a flimsy little love that lets go, but a love that holds on.

And it's down there in the mud, in the blood, in the beer of our depravity, kicking and gouging and saying, I'm not letting go of you.

We want to think about that for just a little bit.

So brood over us, Holy Spirit.

God, thank you.

Thank you, Lord, that you are wild and free.

You're not tame and bound up.

You're wild and free.

And you love us in wild ways that sets us free.

It doesn't lock us down and bind us up in legalism.

It sets us free to come back to you and to your goodness and to weep hot tears of repentance because, oh my gosh, what was I thinking?

I had this and I settled for that.

You're like those waiters at Fogo de Chow.

You just keep slicing the meat off, going, Yeah, haha.

How about them raisin cakes now?

How about some prime rib?

Because you're wild and free.

And so we're let us be dumb with all the less wild lovers in our life.

All the pathetic, pedestrian, flat, boring, predictable things that we settle for.

Little trinkets, not treasures.

But thank you.

We see today with what great love the Father has loved us.

We come back to you and your goodness.

And we say, We are your children, and we will dwell with you many days.

Because you're gonna be to us an indication of what we are to be to you.

For that we're grateful.

So we say thank you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're our guest today, let me say thanks for being here.

Uh you're welcome here anytime.

If you have any questions about anything you heard today, we'll be available down front to answer anything.

Hopefully, all we ask of you is our guests, and you get a chance to pull one of those guest cards in the seat back pocket in your row, fill it out if you would on your way out.

Drop it one of these wooden boxes by the door.

Uh, we'd love to have a record of your attendance.

Uh, also, if today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity when it comes to giving, that's where you take care of that as well, okay?

We like to close our service with a spoken blessing, so stand to your feet.

Hold your hands out.

The love of God is uncaused, which means you did nothing to deserve it.

You've never deserved it, and you never will.

He just wanted you to have it.

He loved you first.

On your worst day, he didn't change the way he loves you.

So come back in fear to the Lord and to his goodness.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.