Hosea - Hesed that Pursues | HESED

So we ended the year in our Elpis, Elpis, Olapis.

I've said a lot of ways over Advent. In the Greek,

we now go to the Hebrew. Remember good Hebrew?

You kind of get that in the back of your throat.

Half of you are phlegmy, so it's probably easier,

right? Chesed, one, two, three. Oh, that was

really good. That was very good. Now apologize

to the person you spit on in front of you. But

chesed, right, the steadfast love of God. I love

how the hand, that's not glitchy, that was created

that way by Mike. It's a trembling hand because

chesed is an unfailing love of the Father, even

though we... tend to fail to love him. And that's

why we're going to look at this first week, a

love that pursues. Okay? A love that pursues.

We're going to talk about that in a minute, but

I have a question. To start our new year, we're

going to start super joyful, right? Mountaintop

experiences. What causes you to quit things in

life? Right? So think about it. Whether it's

a New Year's resolution that you end up quitting

statistically, really not one I just made up,

statistically by the first week in February,

it's usually like 75 % are done. Whether, you

know, when you think about quitting something,

what causes someone to quit? Again, if you're

a guest here this morning, I like to ask questions.

We have a little bit of interactions, and then

I solely get to judge the answers that are given.

Frustration, right? Things get super frustrated.

I just want to quit, right? That's a lot of what

happens when the Holland donors play any form

of monopoly, okay? In all of its various forms.

There's a cheater's monopoly out there. Have

you ever played that? Has anyone ever played

that? Don't, right? It causes fights. It breaks

households. And so, yes. Anything else? What

causes us to quit? Did someone say salary? Oh,

no. What did someone say? Discouragement. Sure.

Yeah. Discouragement. Absolutely. What else?

Failure can cause us to quit. I can't do this.

Right? I failed again. I quit this. Any positive

reasons to quit? I just think about, I don't

know why. I've never smoked a day in my life.

But quitting smoking. Right? That's a healthy

thing. What else? Fear. We quit out of fear.

That's a good one. I think that one's in two

weeks. Other reasons why we quit? Unfair criticism.

Sure. Pain? Yeah. Someone asks you to. I'm not

going to read into that at all. Hang on a second.

Let me sit on that one. This is the danger of

asking questions. Some are so profound that they

cause to pause. Way to go, Nikki. Because someone,

hang on, guilt, we'll get there. Because someone

asks you to. All right, I'm going to store that

one back. Guilt, absolutely. Laziness, all good

answers, right? That we can quit for a variety

of reasons. Let me change it. I'm going to ask

a similar question. What causes people to quit

other people? Yeah, in the back. Mistrust, distrust,

absolutely. Broken trust can cause us to quit.

Sure, that was a really good one. Now to go into

the rest of the sermon. Anything else? Yeah.

Selfishness. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Betrayal. Trust,

right? That's a breaking. Absolutely. Anything

else? Lack of boundaries. Interesting. Randy.

Randy. For three points. Holy cow. An indifference

towards. That's the danger. Wow, why am I getting

emotional about that one? I'm very indifferent

to that answer. No, that was really good, Randy.

That's great, great. All good questions. We're

going to stop there because two have already

wrecked me. So we're not going to go any farther.

But it has to do with something usually that

happens. Something, an event takes place, and

at some point it's just trust can't be built

up again. Right? Even though we believe we can

live unconditionally as people, it's very hard.

it is almost impossible for us to live unconditionally.

Because we put conditions on everything. We put

conditions on everything if we are being honest.

Whether that's covenantal love of a spouse, right?

As the one who reads the vows and have them respond

back, whether they wrote it themselves or we

use the vows that I have put together, right?

We verbalize an unconditional love. And I'm not

going to say that every marriage is a sham because

that's not true or that we lie in our vows. That's

not true either because the intent, the desire

is there. But we put conditions on everything.

We can put conditions on our jobs. We can put

conditions on our family, our relationships,

all of those aspects. But what Hosea is going

to teach us today, what Hosea is going to teach

us about the chesed love of God is that chesed

And what we learn from Hosea is that it's a love

that refuses to quit. Let that sit for five seconds.

Because that cuts through all of those answers.

A love that refuses to quit. That if you're in

a relationship, you are my ride or die. You are

my person come hell or high water. We are going

to make it. through together, yet we had 17 different

answers of why people quit. But this is a love

that refuses to quit. If you want to understand

chesed in just a very easy sense, it's God's

steadfast, loyal, covenant -keeping love. And

you don't start with... I don't know. You don't

start with warm feelings. You don't start with

poetic metaphors. You don't start with poetry.

This is just refuse to quit, not out of stubbornness,

but out of a commitment to that love, even if

it gets down to the one centimeter depth. It's

a refuse to quit. It begins with a broken marriage.

It begins with a betrayal. It begins with Hosea,

one of our minor prophets. Again, we're going

to go do a flyover of a lot of the minor prophets

here in this sermon series. Hosea is God's visual

sermon to his wandering people, the Israelites,

also us. It is an unfiltered picture of what

grace looks like when sin has made an absolute

mess of everything. If you just visualize that

you're just sitting there and it's just desolate

all around you probably because of you. This

is a very, very raw picture of grace. And over

the next seven weeks, Hosea is setting this emotional

tone for the entire series. God's hesed is a

pursuing love. God does not want us to come back.

He comes after us. Because when we think we can

do it, we actually put it on us then. Chesed

has nothing to do with us. Chesed has everything

to do with God's pursuing. That's not only Hosea.

That's the message we find in one of our confessions.

Right? Our confessions. Let me go to Dan Arsma,

the three forms of unity we hold. Heidelberg

Catechism, Belgian Confession, and Canons of

Dort. And that, the Canons of Dort, is going

to be our accompaniment over this sermon series.

That God's grace, you know, the Canons of Dort

teaches us that the grace is God's initiative,

not ours. It's God's pursuit, not ours. It's

God's faithfulness, not ours. Because if it's

put on us, We don't do it. Right? Our grace has

conditions. We stop pursuing when we're indifferent,

we're hurt, we're angry, we're tired, we're hungry,

all of those things. And we're not faithful.

We are faithful -less people at times. That the

cans of Dort will come alongside of us as a warm

blanket on a cold night to help us understand

grace. To me, one of the greatest gifts we have

on this earth. As a believer, as a non -believer,

it's still the greatest gift, you just don't

understand it. And hopefully, if you're a non

-believer here today or you're watching online,

by the end of this sermon series, you should

have a better understanding. So let's dive in.

The shock of Hosea, that God commands a broken

marriage. Hosea 1, verse 2. When the Lord first

Hosea 1:2

spoke to Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go take

to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children

of whoredom. For the land commits great whoredom

by forsaking the Lord. Biggest word in that paragraph,

and. Just kidding, it's not. But understand,

this is a weird thing to read in a church. Welcome

to 2026. But this is God first spoke. This is

Hosea's ministry. His ministry begins with the

kind of command that any pastor gives this command,

instantly fired or hospitalized. Right? If this

is the command that is given, go and do this.

God tells his prophet to enter into a marriage

that is guaranteed to fail. Because what he's

doing, he's teaching Israel and us. That this

is our own story when it comes to God. Let's

give some context. Hosea prophesied in the 8th

century B .C., before Christ, during the reign

of Jobarim II, a time of economic success. We

see a lot going on. There's political stability,

but there is moral collapse. Israel is outwardly

prosperous, but inwardly corrupt. They have aligned

politically with the unfaithful. They've aligned

with Assyria and Egypt, also known as Gentiles.

Their spiritually adulterous Baal worship is

running rampant in the church. They're thinking

you can do both, but people are leaning more

toward Baal. There's a lot of reasons why that

makes for more of a PG -13 movie or above. And

they are socially unjust. The poor is being exploited.

Exploited? That's not a word. What am I trying

to say? Thank you. Don't laugh at me, Rachel.

Sometimes I can't talk. The people thought they

were doing fine, but God wants to see truth.

God wants them to see the truth. And he's doing

that through Hosea. It's their saying, you love

everything but me, yet I still love you. Put

that in the context of your marriage or your

engagement. What if that was you? You love everything

but me. Maybe that's you saying that to your

spouse. Maybe that's your spouse saying that

to you or a family member or a deep relationship.

Yet I still love you. That is covenantal love,

not contractual love. We've been there. We've

done that with all the mowing of the lawns for

millions of dollars. Thank you, Randy. But understand

that that's covenant love. That is what God is

trying to tell the Israelites. Chesed isn't demonstrated

when someone is lovable. Chesed is demonstrated

when someone is unfaithful. This is what builds

this hesed word for us. This is a week wrecker,

a month wrecker. Let's just call it for what

it is, a 2026 wrecker. So, during these sermons,

we're going to go back to school a little bit.

We're going to go to Grace 101. Grace 101 to

start. The canons describe God's grace as directed

not toward the spiritually strong, but towards

those dead in sin, undeserving of... Mercy. Two

concepts that the canons give us all day, every

day. Grace 101. So we look at head three and

four. Humanity is corrupt, inclined to evil,

unable to return to God on their own. Ouch. But

it's true. This is what total depravity means.

We are bent against God. Even though you might

be the strongest Christian in the room, you still

have a bent against God. There's still a friction,

your flesh and your spirit, at war always. And

then we see in 1, line 7, God's love is rooted

in his free, sovereign good pleasure, not in

anything he sees in us. Think about that. If

God looked at you and said, okay, I've got to

find something I can love, guess what? It doesn't

happen. Thank God for Christ's righteousness,

but we'll get there later. Hosea is a living

illustration of a divine initiative. God is initiating

something. God's love is not a response. It is

the initiating heartbeat of covenant grace. Guys,

grace is not anything that we can really lean

into. But God's love beats grace for us. That

is the center part of God's love, is covenant

grace. Now quickly, we're going to take a little

bit of a rabbit trail, but they do mean something,

is the names of the children. Because God's actually

going to tell us about sin with these names.

Hosea and Gomer had three children, each named

by God as a prophetic indictment. How many of

you named your kids with prophetic indictments

in mind? I hope not. I hope not. That'd just

be mean. But we have Jezreel. God scatters and

God judges. A reminder of the bloodshed in Jezreel

under Jehu. This is all historical. It doesn't

mean a whole lot for us in 2026. It meant everything

back then. Lo ramaha, no mercy. God's hesed is

not sentimental permissiveness. That God's hesed

love means everything. It's not conditional.

It's not, oh, they're having a good day. I'll

love them. That's not what it means. God, his

covenant love includes holy discipline. Right?

That's what we talk about cheap grace all the

time. Lord, forgive me for what I'm going to

do this upcoming Friday. That's not okay. That's

cheap grace. But what we need to understand is

that Israel's violence and corruption have not

gone unnoticed, and his covenant love includes

a holy discipline. Sure, will they be forgiven?

Absolutely, when they come on their knees in

true, pure confession. If we confess our sins,

he is faithful and just. Lo, am I. Not my people.

The covenant fractures under the weight of sin.

This is the covenant lawsuit of a wounded husband.

He was put into a no -win situation, at least

from the look of it. This is not God withdrawing

love. This is God withdrawing comfort so that

his people would awaken to their spiritual adultery.

You have worshipped other gods. That's commandment

one. Right? That's in the first four. And they

knowingly are going to just worship other things.

I don't know about you, but there's this binding

going on in me. That God is withdrawing comfort

so that his people would awaken to their spiritual

adultery. This is what church discipline is completely

based on. But more on that later. Grace 201.

What do the canons teach us about this? The canons

teach that apart from God's sovereign initiative,

this chesed love on the move, we remain blind

to our sin. Head 3 and 4, 10 and 11. God works

through the word and the spirit to enlighten,

open the heart, and make the will alive. Right?

It's not until we come face to face with the

ugliness of our sin. That we're going to make

that turn. Because we love sin. We do. It feels

great. That's what worshiping Baal was all about.

Do what you want. Be your own God. And it got

super dark and destructive and bad. And the people

who knew Yahweh, whose family line knew Yahweh,

said, yeah, that looks better than Yahweh. Friends,

we do the same thing. Whether it's on the computer

screen with another individual, within ourselves,

with money, with fame, whatever it is. We can

see both roads and go, this is what God wants

for me in this moment, but this feels too darn

good. I'm just going to fall in that. And then

what the believer can do is say, because God's

going to ultimately forgive me. Friend, you can't

play hide and seek with someone who's omniscient

and omnipresent. Who's the fool in that sentence?

It's not God. It's us. It's me. It's you. Just

as Israel couldn't see their own sin without

Isaiah's prophetic shock, we cannot see our own

sin unless God reveals it. Yet we like to think

we can just put our sin right over here and we

can just live our life and think that it's not

under his lordship. Why do you want to live outside

of God's lordship? If God is the sovereign God

who created the stars, the moon, the skies, and

you, Why do you want to hide it from them? Because

we're scared. Because we don't fully trust. Because

we can't have chesed love for God, yet he has

it for us. Chesed includes the grace of truth

-telling and living it out. Yet God says, I will

allure her. This is where grace starts to pick

up some movement. A grace that pursues. After

the judgment comes one of the tenderest passages

in all of Scripture. I read this and I'm just

like, okay, we can make it another minute. We

can make it another hour. Hosea 2. Therefore,

behold, I will allure her and bring her into

the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. Notice

what God is not saying. He's not putting conditions

on it. If she returns to me, if she improves,

if she repents enough, if she comes to church

enough, if she says the right prayers, if she

gives the right money, if she volunteers in the

right things, she, he, this isn't just hers,

this is his as well. God initiates, I will allure.

I will pursue. Friends, when do we pursue things?

Keep it clean. When do we pursue things in life?

Anybody? When we love them. Thank you. Austin,

absolutely. When you love them, right? At that

point, it would have been just, could you just

go put your arm right over her? Good job. I did

their wedding. I can do that. Understand that

when we desire something, when we want something,

right? Right? When you want something, you pursue

it. I'm not even going to bring up Carrie and

I. I'm not going to do that for you. But you

can understand. That's why Carrie runs so fast.

But understand, when you want something bad enough,

you pursue it. Whether it's that, what is that

called when you get a better job? A raise, right?

Whether you want a raise, you pursue it. I mean,

I don't know how many people just go, second

day of your new job, I'm going to be the CEO

next week. And you just sit, right? We don't

know. If you want it, you pursue it, right? Gen

Alpha, millennials, remember that. If you want

it, you need to pursue it. You need to work after

it. I will allure her. This is language of romance.

This is language of pursuit. This is language

of chesed. That is why Randy's comment destroyed

me and should destroy us. Remember what his comment

was? On this side, what was Randy's comment?

When you become indifferent. Thank you, three

people. When you just become indifferent. I mean,

when all of a sudden you're looking at your marriage

and you're like, yeah, that's my wife. Yeah,

that's our relationship. You want to go on a

date today? Yeah. You want to watch the Bears?

Heck yeah, I do. No, wrong time to clap. Wrong

time to clap. Holy cow. Father, we pray for whoever

clapped over there. We pray for that marriage.

I mean, we get it, don't we? What we desire,

we want to pursue. This is the language of Chesed.

This is the wilderness of the honeymoon. In the

ancient world, the wilderness, we see it on display,

was not simply a place for wandering, but it's

where covenants were formed. It's when Israel

at first learned to trust God. It is where God

provided manna, water, and protection. The wilderness

is the honeymoon suite for Israelite faithlessness.

Sometimes we've got to be taken out into the

wilderness. Quick question, is the wilderness

comfortable? Not at all. If it was, everyone

would want to go there. The wilderness is not

comfortable. It's uncomfortable. That's part

of the process of God's chesed love. I'm going

to take you back to the beginning. I'm going

to remind you who I am. Israelite needed to hear

it through Hosea. Friends, we need to hear that

every day. Grace 301. When the canons of Dort

speak of irresistible grace, they don't mean

grace that coerces the will. It means grace that

wins the heart. 3 and 4, 12 and 13, God sweetly

and powerfully bends the will, making us willing

to return. Type A's, you can't stand this because

you believe no one can touch your will. Okay,

I'll put, no one can touch our will. I'll put

myself in that. I could be type A. I know you're

shocked. But we don't like that. Our will is

our will. I created this. This is for me. I get

to say. And some of us do that. We bang our feet.

What we need to understand is your will to God,

I mean, what? That's nothing. God can bend your

will. Head five, one through three. Even after

believers fall, God preserves and renews them.

Friend, this isn't a one and done. This isn't

like we have to try out like we're in high school.

Where if you do something wrong, you're probably

on the bottom list. You don't make the cut. That's

not God ever. That's not chesed love. This is

what God does with the people in Hosea. Grace

does not chase us because we are faithful. Grace

chases us because God is faithful. We can give

him all kinds of birds. He's still going to chase

after us. We sang about it. We declared it today.

And this is when we see God buys back his bride.

Grace that redeems. Hosea 3. So I bought her

for 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a lehef

of barley. None of that really means anything

to us, and that's fine. Gomer has not just left

Hosea. She has sunk so low, she is now being

sold, likely into slavery or some kind of exploitation.

I think we all know what I mean. And Hosea, representing

God, does the unthinkable. He buys back his own

unfaithful wife. This is the Mount Everest. This

is the top show of chesed that we have outside

of Christ on the cross. This moment anticipates

the redemption of Israel from Egypt. It anticipates

the restoration of exile and ultimately brings

alive 1 Corinthians 6 .12. You were bought with

a price. That's for us. We were bought with a

price. God does not merely forgive. He redeems.

At all costs. Namely, his son. On the cross.

For you and for me. Grace 401. Ed 2 .8. Christ's

death effectively redeems the people the father

has given him. 3 and 4 .14. God opens the closed

heart and he softens the hard heart. In a game

of stubbornness between you and God, guess what?

You lose. I lose. All day. Every day. Hosea buying

back Gomer is a living picture of the particular

love of God, the effective redemption accomplished

by Christ, and the personal application of grace

by the Spirit. If you hear anything today, hear

these things. We do not rescue ourselves. We

are rescued, we are redeemed, and we are restored.

So what does Chesed teach us for today? Let's

land the plane here. If we only admire Hosea

from a distance, we miss the point. We got to

get into it. This covenant story Hosea reveals

is also our calling. To live as people who have

been loved first. We do not obey to earn God's

love. We obey because we've been pursued by grace.

This is the reformed order of salvation, right?

Grace, gratitude, obedience. We obey because

it's worth it. And don't try to weigh that in

your mind. Christ went to the cross so we don't

have to. We obey. We live out the call of Christ

because of grace and our gratitude. If you don't

have gratitude about God's grace, you are dead

inside. It's probably the best way I can say

it. That God's grace is so irresistible. If you

want something else in this world besides God's

grace, you are a fool. I am a fool. We are called

to extend chesed to others. Knowing we'll never

get it perfectly, but it's a good model, pursuing

love, but not conditional love. If God pursues

us when we're unfaithful, we cannot withhold

kindness from those who hurt or disappoint us.

So this is going to ruffle the feathers of that

quitting conversation because we ought to forgive.

Chesed in practice means, ooh, this is tough.

And I look first here at Jim. Forgiveness when

forgiveness feels costly. Compassion when compassion

feels inconvenient. Patient with people who we

think don't deserve it. And faithfulness when

others are inconsistent. Third, let God tell

the truth about your sin. Hosea's children remind

us honesty about sin is part of God's loving

pursuit. Repentance isn't punishment. It's the

path home. It's the going down the sin path,

the pause. That pause is so important. It's recognizing

who God is, who we are, and our need for God,

and then knowing that when we turn, his blessed

love's already there. We walk in it. We live

in it. Finally, remember that grace is not passive.

Grace pursues. Munster Church, as we enter this

new year, entering a season, and understanding

grace deeper will mean something. Our understanding

of grace deepens, that means we need to walk

it out or we've gained and learned nothing. Grace

in growth, grace in conflict, grace in building,

grace in welcoming, grace in disciplining, grace

in stretching out our faith. Chesed will be your

guide. What does Disney want to tell us? Our

conscience will be our guide. Wake up. Our conscience

will be our guide. That is a lie from the pit

of hell. Grace will be our guide. We love because

he first loved us. His love is stronger than

your failures. Hosea's story ends, not in heartbreak,

but in a homecoming. If you forget anything else

today, remember you, I am Gomer. God is Hosea,

and his hesed is stronger than our failures.

The canons of Dor declared the same truth today.

Grace pursues, grace awakens, grace redeems,

grace restores, and grace keeps us. And friends,

that grace is not abstract. It is God himself.

The God who runs towards sinners. The God who

refuses to let go. The God whose covenant love

endures forever. Let's pray.