Hosea: From Death to Blossom

Hoseah 14 verse 1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Take with you words and return to the Lord.

Say to him, Take away all iniquity.

Accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.

Assyria shall not save us.

We will not ride on horses, and we will not say no more, our God, to the work of our hands.

In you the orphan finds mercy.

I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.

I will be like the dew to Israel, he shall blossom like the lily.

He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon, his shoots shall spread out, his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon.

They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow.

They shall flourish like the grain.

They shall blossom like the vine.

Their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?

It is I who answer and look after you.

I am like an evergreen cypress.

From me comes your fruit.

Whoever is wise, let him understand these things.

Whoever is discerning discerning, let him know them.

For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.

This is God's word.

My wife, who I asked permission to share the story, she says, uh, she often says, the one gift you cannot get her is a pot plant.

She says to me, the only reason why I like the only gift you can't get me is a pot plant because my job is to uh keep people alive, not plants.

Uh they will die.

So uh avoid getting pot plants.

Speaking of which, then um saying or sharing that specifically is to say um we've watched a lot of plants die in our home because people have been kind to buy us plot plot uh in pot plants, yes, or plants for that matter.

And basically, plants need sun, plants need water, plants need to be babied.

Uh the the the the idea they die is because they need to be cared for.

And and yesterday actually someone uh told me uh plants actually mostly die from neglect.

And I thought about that walking through the nursery, uh the uh glorified crash of plants, where you find that these small things uh get there as seedlings and they are watered, then they need to grow, and then someone buys it and gives it to us and we kill it.

Anyway, someone then buys this and we obviously then don't know how to care for it, and we kill it.

And it dies a slow death, it actually weathers and turns uh a bit brown, and then uh you you you you suffocate it with more and more water thinking, that's what's keeping it alive, but actually you are killing it even more.

And and simply put, friends, the the the plant in and of itself cannot generate uh the conditions for its own life.

That's the that's the lesson we're gonna see even in Hosea, that the plant, simply put as a plant, cannot uh necessarily uh kind of conjure up or manufacture conditions for it to uh be alive.

It can't design the sun, it can't uh pour or water itself, as it were.

It it needs to receive life in order for it to flourish.

And whether you're a Christian this morning or not sure what you believe, we can all agree to all of this this point that we are the same in some instance.

That we we we we need the right conditions, or we need to be poured into, or we need the right conditions to be manufactured in our state for us to flourish.

Meaningful work, security, people who love us, enough money, uh not to be afraid of anything, actually, a sense that our life matters innately so is because, friends, we have this thing called a drive.

The drive that keeps us going.

When that drive goes away, some people then start going to therapy.

The the drive, the will to live, the will to wake up in the morning, as it were.

And friends, I'm sensitive to that fact that uh some of us carry that burden because we live in tough conditions.

Conditions that don't allow us necessarily to thrive.

The the realities that slowly sep the life out of everything that we have.

The realities that expose even furthermore our fallen condition.

And here's the question for people who looked like they were thriving in Hosea, who who Hosea is actually kind of putting before us to confront us with this question.

What if we can have many of these things we thought would make us flourish and still be disconnected from the one true reality that is meant to give us life?

Let me ask that again.

What if we can have many of the things we thought would make us flourish?

The right job, the right conditions, the right access to the right kind of money?

What if we had everything that you pray for that gets you excited over a weekend?

What if you what if God said yes to all your prayers?

And you found at the end of that answer, or at the end of that yes, there's still a disconnection.

Because you're not longing for the giver, you're longing for the gifts.

That at the end of that, you still lose the sense of meaning and drive because you've sought for it in uh ultimately in these things and not in the one who gives life, who's created us for himself in the first place.

And friends, from for months, then walking through Hosea, we've basically seen a marriage falling apart.

Hosea Mary Goma, and these kids that are mentioned in the book.

God's people trading the giver for gifts, as it were.

Then last week, friends, we we came to that horrific end.

And I was asking myself, why did I why why was I very I need to say it in?

Why being Isba?

Why was I like restraining myself?

Yes.

Well, why was I restraining myself from revealing the horror and until I realized actually there were kids at the back?

If if I would kind of display the horrific story of Israel's end, it it would break all of us.

And and I pray that as you are reading, as you uh contemplate, as you kind of like prayed through the text and and read the text, you you you you you are grappled and faced with the reality of the horrific story of their end.

That these people were exiles.

These people that went from the east came, the these people were judged, these people were, as it were, faced the the pangs of childbirth and were not born, they died.

Many lives were lost on uh 722 BC, historically so.

They they fell to the Assyrians.

That that this land was parched, this land, there was a drought, as it were, there was there was no flourishing, absolutely none.

So, friends, if we were to end or close the book with chapter 13, everything Israel had seen or had was left with is basically the story of death.

Remember last week when I ended off, I was like, man, we get to mock death.

In light of the finished work of Christ, in light of his resurrection, we get to mock death.

But what Paul was drawing from in the immediate context was a people who God was saying, I command death.

The the very thing that you think you you are invisible to, you you cannot escape this reality.

Okay, here's death, deal with that.

Bribe your way out of this one.

Let's see you uh uh put a put put a spreadsheet together to escape this one.

Here's death, here's exile, here's um babies and mothers dying.

What are you gonna do?

That was a judgment.

But friends, we praise God that there's chapter 14.

Chapter 14, verse 1.

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God.

Chapter 14, verse 4, I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely.

And suddenly, chapter 14, verse 5, I will be like the Jew of Israel, he shall blossom like the lily.

The plant that was drying up uh begins to blossom again.

Which which raises, friends, the question that how does something that has become under has come under death from the beginning blossom again?

You know, sometimes I've attempted and watching that plant, uh poor plant die, and and as I said, water it and try to to bring it back to life.

It's it's dead.

But here, friends, we meet a God who brings life out of death.

Personally, friends, I would ask this question: where does the kind of life we cannot manufacture for ourselves actually come from?

And Osea will answer that question for us in four parts.

Number one, he'll say, Return.

Number two, he says, I will heal you from your turning away.

As it were, I will heal you from your apostasy.

Number three, he will say, You will then blossom again.

And lastly, the question that will press us today is will you walk or stumble?

Will you walk or what?

Return.

Chapter 13, friends, ended, as I said, with a bad reality of Samaria in ruin.

Um, and I said, as you close your Bible there, you you can walk away feeling like man, there's no hope.

But Hosea uh comes back and gives us a flip, uh a new song, as it were.

He he gives us words to utter, he he he transitions into God speaking again.

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God.

Notice what's what's what's very easy to miss in in verse 1 actually, return, O Israel, to the Lord your God.

Return.

But return to the Lord your God after the affair, after the idol idolatry, after the rebellion, after um um um um these people were playing the W word.

God still claims them for himself, says return to who?

The Lord your God.

This relationship was never going to survive, friends, because Israel finally became consistent.

No, it survives because God's covenant faithfulness is all the more enduring, it endures more so, even more, beyond Israel's faithlessness, beyond Israel's unfaithfulness.

By the way, friends, this isn't the first time the word return is used.

Quickly, if you read chapter 5, verse 4, you'll see their deeds do not permit them to return.

For the spirit of whoredom is within them.

If you read in chapter 6, verse 1 to 4, you'll hear the words, the right words were said.

Come, let us return to the Lord.

And and God says, Man, this is short-lived.

They're like the morning dew, it it quickly dissipates.

Their love for God is short-lived.

In chapter 7, verse 10, yeah, it gives a picture of the pride blocking the return.

Though I raised them as a loving father, in chapter 11, they they they they refuse to return.

Oh man, the tender care of the father raising this child, and the child is saying, I'm not gonna come back.

Again, we see now in chapter 14, God saying to them, Return, oh Israel, to the Lord your God.

For you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Take take with you your your your your words and return to the Lord.

That's verse 2.

Take with you what not your accomplishments, not your your your works.

Take with you these words.

I'm giving you words to to return.

No, not achievements, not not a clean record, not proof this time that things will be different, not false promises.

It's it's just words from the Lord.

And and look at verse 3, friends.

It says, Assyria, these are the words God gives them.

Assyria, your allegiances, your your alliances will not save you.

It says Assyria shall not save you.

Do you see it, friends, in verse 3 of chapter 14?

Assyria, the power they ran to for protection, God says to them, This shall not save you.

These are the words I'm giving you.

Your your horses, your horsepower, your your Ferrari, your your your your the things you run to for confidence, the the things you run to for for strength.

Your your personal arsenal.

That savings account that no one knows about.

The things that you run to for refuge will not you will not ride on horses.

You will not ride on these things, and he says more, friends.

Says, we will say no more, our God to the work of our hands.

Do you see what is implied there?

Who are they calling our God?

The work of their hands.

One movement of the heart, friends, looking somewhere other than God for security, for strength, for significance is an idol.

That's the point he's saying, man, you will it will come to an end.

Your idolatry is coming to an end.

That's what verse 3 is saying.

Those three things have names in Johannesburg, friends.

You you you probably here not considering yourself as a religious person, but but the this word idol, these idols have names here.

They they they may not sound like what Hosea is naming here, but but it forces us to then ask the hala question: what are you depending on to give you what only God could promise?

What what has to go well for you to believe your life is going well?

You see, friends, you don't need to bow before a statue to build your life around something.

Your sea is whatever you're quietly counting on to keep you safe.

Your your horses, maybe your own competence, the the work of your hands, your what are the work of your hands?

Your career, your business, even the family you are raising well, you can turn into a God.

And Tim Keller calls them counterfeit gods.

And friends, what I've mentioned here, none of these things are evil in and of themselves.

You being an intelligent person is not evil.

It's a gift.

You having resources is not evil, it's a it's a gift.

You having a career is a what?

It's a gift.

The evil is turning that gift into a God.

It's turning to that gift and asking from that gift what only the giver can give.

And friends, that's the precise point Jose is making that these things that these words we need to in repentance turn away from.

God is saying, Man, these things deceive us to thinking they are the source of life and ultimate meaning.

And friends, there's nothing more dangerous than devoted confidence in a fake God of our own imagination.

And John Calvin frames it this way.

I want to read it quickly.

Says, man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

After the flood, there were a sort of uh there was a sort of rebirth of the world, the flood of Noah.

But not many years passed by before men were fashioning gods according to their pleasure.

Man's mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a God according to its own capacity.

As it sluggishly plots, indeed, is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance.

I love English, guys, sorry.

It conceives of an unreality and an empty appearance as God.

To these evils, a new wickedness joins itself.

That that man tries to express in his work the sort of God he has inwardly conceived.

Therefore, the mind begets an idol, the hand gives it birth.

The example, friends, that the Israel shows of the original of the origin of idolatry to be that man men do not believe God is with them unless he shows himself physically present.

In fact, in Hosea, we have a picture of these craftsmen building these idols and kissing them.

A thing they they they they they they they conjured up and constructed in their minds and had and brought it to, as it were, a reality and said, You are my God.

Sounds like a creative.

Sounds like worshiping your content creation.

It sounds like worshiping your career because you man, you you you you strived to make it happen.

Sounds like worshiping your beautiful uh uh uh Mercedes or or BMW or or Corolla or Atos, whatever it is.

Uh just like marveling it like you're a good good father.

Looking at that and prizing it as the ultimate thing that gives you significance and meaning and identity.

It's something that you conjured up and worked hard for, and now you see it, and now you bow to it.

That's what Calvin is making here.

Our hearts, friends, are a perpetual idol factory.

We call our God the work of our hands, and this is what we are being called to repent of.

Friends, a good job is good, but when it has to prove a matter, I'm asking it for more than what work was created to give.

And friends, dare I say, as in the words of many other preachers, those idols make terrible gods.

Maybe it's your relationship.

You're destroying them, you're expecting of them what only God can give you.

They won't give you significance and meaning.

They can't, they have no capacity to not saying lower expectations, but I'm saying redirect your worship.

The confession ends somewhere beautiful.

Hosea 14 verse 3.

Hosea 14:3

In you the often finds often finds mercy.

And you the often often finds mercy.

My daughter corrects my pronunciation, guys.

I'm in that stage now, so I'm I'm trying.

Friends, Hosea began introducing us to his family, right?

His his daughter, uh his second daughter, who's we're not sure if it's a legitimate child or not, but her name was Loruhama.

Do you remember that?

For those of you who are here, and and that means law means no.

Ruhama kind of means mercy, no mercy.

Now, now now hear this out in verse 3 in you the often finds what?

Mercy.

Now, people with nothing left to bargain with discover that mercy is still found in God.

Maybe you're wondering what return could mean if you've never thought you belonged to God in the first place.

I'm speaking to you who maybe are here in this room and you're not a Christian.

I want to say this.

Christianity makes a remarkable claim, friends, that this God isn't merely Israel's religion or religious preference.

He's the one from whom all of us have life.

And to return to him then is not to become artificially religious.

It is to return to the one for whom you were made.

There's mercy for an orphan.

There's mercy for the far gone.

There's mercy for those who who who may feel like, man, I can't live up to these standards.

There's mercy for you.

And as we've as we've seen time and time again, friends, Israel doesn't merely wander once.

There's an innate kind of propensity to wander, like a proclivity, a a bent to keep wandering away and away again and again from this God.

Then my question, well, I ask myself is then what where's the hope?

If they are returned, where's the hope?

If they return, by the way, where's the hope?

Point number two.

I will heal their turning away.

I will heal their turning away.

I will heal their apostasy.

Some healing services are about to happen here.

Do you hear?

Do you see it, friends?

He's saying, I will heal them.

I will heal their turning away.

I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.

The word behind apostasy in in I'm reading the Ephesians, um, I mean ESV, the word behind apostasy, friends, doesn't uh name one bad decision, as it were.

It is a set settled, settled pattern of turning away.

God doesn't say, I will forgive what you did.

He says, I will heal you, I will heal what keeps happening in you.

You see, friends, forgiveness deals with what?

With guilt.

Healing deals with the disposition, the bent, the the the the inclination, the the the the that's the that's the nature of this verb, friends.

It's it gives us a promise.

I will heal.

That's what God is saying.

You you are the object of of God's healing, and and and and God's healing is He's not healing you as it were, He's healing your bent, your your apostasy.

He doesn't merely, friends, are just individual acts of wandering.

He promises to heal their turning away, their apostasy.

See, friends, our problem is not only that we have wandered, it is that there is something in us prone to wander.

And God doesn't merely promise mercy for where our wandering has taken us.

He says, I will heal your turning away.

You see, friends, what that means simply is this that grace does not only pardon the wanderer, grace begins to heal the wandering heart.

That's why we sing songs like prone to wonder.

Lord, I prone to leave the God I love.

Hear my heart, Lord.

Like it's it's it's it's a it's a it's a word we use on Theology Tuesdays where we talk about progressive sanctification, God keeping, keeping, keeping on working on you, as it were, healing you with the gospel.

You see, friends, you can pardon a wanderer and still send her out with the same wandering heart.

You need a new heart, you need a healed heart.

I had an illustration to wake people up.

I don't know if it's necessary now.

People are like wide awake, but it's kind of a picture of a reflex we have, like to to describe this, this, this bent.

Have you ever like have you ever like scroll through your phone and then put it away, like maybe on the Instagram and put it away and again like go back and scroll again, but you were just there five minutes ago, and like and it's just like, or you're like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna see my phone, and then here you go again, you're on your phone again, you're like, how did I end up here?

And then you put it away.

Like that there's there's this idea of an innate reflex.

The thing with the phone is that the issue isn't Instagram, as it were.

It's it's that it's that reflex.

Because you'll scroll and see the same thing.

What what are you looking for?

Something in you keeps reaching for that that phone.

It's a it's a word, friends, it's a reflex.

There's something there that will either affirm you or amuse you.

The posters are affirmed.

The non-posters are amused.

Something happens to you with that reflex.

That's that's the idea here, friends, of a bend, a a reflex, a an apostasizing, a heart that that that has developed a reflex away from God.

That's that's our fallen condition.

We have a bend, a reflex to wander, to move away.

So, friends, God heals that.

He he gives us the ability to resist sin.

No, the cross conquers the power, the penalty, the the the hope of conquering the presence of sin.

But but the that that power has been conquered, you can say no.

There's no what happened here?

You you can actively resist sin.

You can actively lean into community, you can actively lean into prayer, you can actively lean into your word, you can actively lean in, friends, into the into the means of God's grace.

That's that's God's enablement.

That's God healing you, that's God numbing your reflex and and killing that sin, as it were.

Return, I will heal your turning away.

Christianity is not a call to fix our lives, it's not a call to fix ourselves, then come back to God and say, Okay, God, I'm I'm good, I'm I'm returning.

No, it is God healing your turning away, it is God enabling you to turn to Him and worship.

You don't heal yourself before you come to the healer, you come to the Healer.

In other words, friends, we are a broken people here.

We are people who are in need of who?

Of a healer.

And notice what happens then in the text.

Notice the kind of love that is given.

It is, I will freely love them, I will love them freely.

Israel has nothing left to bargain with.

Israel has nothing left to negotiate with.

No bulls, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no practices to to to bargain with God with them.

They have nothing left to earn.

They are trust.

They are a broken people.

You see, friends, this love that God is showing them is freely given.

It's not earned.

God says, My anger has turned away from them.

But but how did that happen?

Hosea has not cheated God's anger, friends, against sin as a minor thing.

We've seen that already.

We've just looked at chapter 13.

The judgment was real.

So, how can this anger of a holy God turn away from guilty people without his holiness turning away with it?

Hosea doesn't explain the mechanisms here.

He leaves us with that lingering question.

But if you read from this side of the cross, the gospel shows us how God can be both just and the one who saves sinners.

You see, friends, at the cross, God's judgment against sin doesn't evaporate.

Christ stands in his people's place and bears what their sin deserves at a great cost to himself.

If you've always thought Christianity was mainly about what you must do for God, the cross turns that around.

It begins with, this is what I've done for you in my son.

And yet, friends, if the gospel only got as far as just that, we'd remain a dead plant.

We'd remain a dead plant no longer under judgment, as it were.

But Hosea 14 doesn't stop with Anna turned away.

The God who heals our turning does something more.

He makes dying things live.

Oh man.

We worship a God who brings life.

You will blossom again.

Point number three.

Are we still checking, friends?

Look at it in verse 5 to 7, as it were.

I will be like the dew in Israel.

He he shall blossom like the lily, he shall strike um root like the poplar.

His shoes shall spread out, his beauty shall be like the olive and his fragrance like like Lebanon.

Like that's I can smell that through this compute, this laptop.

He shall be like the fragrance in Lebanon.

We've heard, friends, of a picture of Jew before, back in chapter 6.

God described Israel's love as the Jew that that that that that goes early away.

Remember?

There's this this idea of this Jew that that is gone by midday.

But but here, friends, we we we we see God saying what?

I will be like the Jew to Israel, that that is constant.

That's the picture of this this love of God that that is unfailing, that is consistent.

God is the Jew and and that makes the the Israelites flourish, that makes his people, his church flourish.

You see, friends, the answer here in this text is that the the answer was never Israel learning to become more reliable Jew.

The answer was never them becoming that consistent Jew that is reliable, like that stays through the midday.

No, God changes the sentence and changes the reality all of a sudden, even about us.

That friends, the imagery of disappearing Jew is changed to this Jew that is sustaining Jew, D E W.

Someone like Jew, do, Jew, D E W.

Jew that gives fruits to barrenness.

That Israel is genuinely blossoming, the lily, the roots are real, but the plant doesn't manufacture the dew.

It cannot.

God does this, friends.

That's what grace is.

That's the the grace we see in the garden.

That's that's grace that produces real growth.

That is grace, friends, that sustains a life, that is grace that you and I cannot produce in and of ourselves.

So we can answer the question by by starting with this, friends.

How does something under death begin to blossom again?

I asked that question just now.

How does something that is dead, how does a dead plant sprout and and flourish?

It's not the the the plant conjuring up uh inner grid, inner will plower to blossom.

It's not a plant that is roused up by a passionate black preacher who's like, hey, blossom.

It's not that, friends.

It's not a plant that is receiving its blossom.

Receive your blossom, receive your blossom.

It's it's not that, friends.

It's God giving life, it's God giving life to what cannot generate life in and of itself.

There's no human effort here.

And that's why, friends, the gospel doesn't end at the cross, it's it's it moves to resurrection, as it were.

Christ bears the judgment on himself.

In the resurrection, death itself begins to lose its grip.

This is Christianity, friends.

That's the invitation you are called to.

It's not to try harder, but to become, friends, one who receives life in Jesus, the true vine.

For everyone who belongs to the risen Christ, this becomes the pattern of their life.

They they they they they can't do anything else but blossom because they're abiding in the true vine.

Look at verse 8.

Oh Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?

It is I who answer and look after you.

I am like an evergreen cypress, from me comes your fruit.

Jesus alludes to this.

Apart from me, you cannot do anything, you can't bear fruit in and of yourself.

You need to abide.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

That's John 15, verse 5.

John 15:5

Hosea isn't preaching, as it were, or predicting John's gospel.

I'm not saying that, friends.

The same truth simply surfaces in both places.

Life with God cannot be self-generated, it just cannot be.

Flourishing in Christ is never a project of self.

A branch doesn't manufacture its own sap, a flower doesn't manufacture its own dew, Israel couldn't manufacture faithfulness, neither can we, friends.

And and this is the death of our self-righteousness.

If you're looking down your nose on other people because they sin in more technical ways than you.

Maybe you've done well to hide your sin.

Maybe you've done well to to navigate self-righteousness and the language of churching and whatever that.

This kills all of that.

Friends, nothing in us, in and of ourselves, is good, friends.

All that is producing us is a gift from God, the fruit of of righteousness and holiness and faithfulness, our growth, our fruitfulness is it's it's God's work in us.

That's why we're preaching through Hoseya.

That's why we're walking through Hosea, friends.

It's the death of self-righteousness.

We are the Goma here.

Not only the religious kind that says I'm a good person, but the deeper human instincts that says I produce the life that will finally prove I am enough.

That's why you're preaching Hosea for for the gold catter in Rosebank.

Christianity, friends, is not handing you uh fruit and sending you away, as it were.

It's life in union with Christ.

It's not like you graduate and walk away, it's continual abiding.

I joke and say they are no Super Saiyan Christians, they are not graduate Christians with honors in Christianity and masters and doctorates in Christianity.

There's no such.

We keep abiding, we keep resting in him.

Because in our proneness to wonder, friends, we unbecome, we we die.

We need life in him.

We need to Psalm chapter 1 and and be transplanted by the living water to flourish in him.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

Left to ourselves, friends.

We could burn down Madlanga Commission.

Abide in me, Jesus says, the branch bears fruit because it remains joined to the true vine.

And friends, think about what Israel has been chasing.

Been chasing Baal for fruitfulness, they've been chasing Assaria for security, kings for stability, wealth for significance.

In fact, if you if you were not, if you are reading slow enough in chapter 13, you'll realize in their chasing, they even did the most atrocious thing.

They were sacrificing babies in altars.

Leaving babies in altars because they were desiring something good.

But friends, the tragedy was asking the gift to do the giver's job.

That's my cue.

Good gifts, friends, make terrible gods.

So, what are you asking a good and finite gift or finite thing to do that only its infinite source can only do?

That's a question for you.

So, you see, see, friends, the question alludes to this point.

We don't want Christians afraid of success.

Don't hear me wrong.

We don't want Christians afraid of influence.

Don't hear me wrong.

We don't want Christians afraid of educating themselves.

We don't want Christians afraid of money.

Although it's the root of all evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith.

The point is, we don't want people afraid of opportunities and being resourceful.

I'm not saying that.

We want people who receive good gifts, good things as gifts without turning them into gods.

We want people who know everything in their hands has a source and can steward it freely for his glory and the neighbor's good.

We want people who will uh give generously to opening doors for others.

We want people who will use their resourcefulness and their education to serve others, who will use their influence to advocate for those who are um marginalized.

Want people who will build businesses that will bless their cities, want people to see their careers not merely as a ladder to to climb, but as something God has placed in your hands to be a steward of.

It's about his kingdom, it's about his will, it's about his mission.

And lastly, like every good preacher, which I'm trying to be Hosea, ends with a call to respond.

Look at verse 9.

What a way to call it.

Uh it reminds me of a township preacher.

Uh Babushabbalalah Babu Shabbalala would would would climb on chairs, would climb on tables, if he could, he'd climb on his pulpit.

I said, How will you respond?

In fact, take it or leave it.

I'm not here to negotiate for with you.

How will you how will you respond?

And what say ends here, he says, Will you walk or will you stumble?

He says, Whoever is wise, let him understand these things.

For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.

See, friends, this is a call.

Will you walk or will you stumble?

That's the book, and in verse 1, he he he is he he called them they were stumbling because of their iniquity.

In verse 9, transgressors are called stumblers.

And friends, Hosea turns Israel's story into a live question for all of us in this room.

Will you walk in the ways of the Lord or will you stumble over them?

You see, friends, the test of this series was never whether you found Hosea moving and making you cry and all emo on Monday morning.

No, the the the question is this will you walk differently because of it?

How is your life being formed because of this?

Will will you return?

Will will you will your will your will you see the the healing hand of God turning you away from the inclinations of your heart into into blossoming and flourishing?

Will will you walk or will you stumble?

Gregor Porter said there will be no love dying here.

He kind of carries a picture in the song of a beautiful image of human determination.

A bird is flying.

With a broken wind into my household, I will heal it and it will fly away and flourish.

It's a beautiful picture of him not letting love die in his house.

But after 14 chapters of Hosea, friends, there's a problem.

Israel cannot make that promise.

Israel can't say there'll be no love dying here.

We can't say there'll be no love dying here.

Her love is like a morning dew, it appears and evaporates.

And if we've understood Hosea rightly, neither can we sustain the love.

You see, friends, we've been looking to the wrong lover.

If you've been looking to your boyfriend, your career, your husband, your wife, your kids, you've been looking to the wrong lover.

The final hope of Hosea was never the durability of Israel's love for God.

It was the loyal love of God for Israel, for his people, for his church.

See, friends, the only one who keeps the love of God, even our love for him alive, is God.

Will you abide?

Will you abide?

Will you look at the cross?

Would you see God that that does does not wave our sin away?

But but Christ bearing its judgment and in the resurrection, death does not have a final say anymore.

Would you look to that Christ?

Will you look to the the Christ who who says, Man, you have life in me?

You see, friends, the the dying plant cannot shout itself back to life.

But God says, I'll be the Jew.

Jesus says, Abide in me.

As I close, friends, the Christian life was never meant to be a life of self-gratification.

And if I could put my head on the block, that's the core sin of Israel in this book.

They wanted to gratify themselves.

They wanted to fill those storehouses with more grain.

See, friends, the Christian life is a life that is received by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

It is Christ who causes us to blossom, as it were.

And sometimes, friends, it doesn't happen.

There's realities here that are physical that say, hey, there's an actual harvest.

God is not averse to physical success and being productive.

But if that's all you look to God for, for your flourishing in life, then you'll probably end up like Israel.

God says, Man, my ways are right.

They are upright.

My promises are consistent, they are continual, they are yes and amen.

I'm the Jew that never evaporates.

Find your sustenance in me.

Perhaps it might not work out in this life.

But you see, he's conquered the final enemy, which is death.

What are you afraid of?

What are you afraid of?

Would you come to him by faith in Christ?

See, friends, these idols have sapped life out of us.

But Christ is calling us to life in him.

And the life that is produced in Christ is a life that causes cities to flourish.

It's a life that then sees Jobek and sees not just the city as an artificial, abstract reality, but people, actual people, Nathans, the Tundis, the Buchlers of Seattle Coffee.

It's seeing people and longing for them to flourish through the gospel.

It moves a city that was destined for destruction to a city that has hope and hope in Christ.

See, friends, Ms.

City Church wants us to be a place where true healing happens, a healing of our innate bent away from God.

It's a church that we say, man, we want people to blossom in grace and not in their works.

It's a place where we want you to flourish, but not worship your idols.

It's a place, friends, where God is calling us to walk in his ways.

Enabled by Jesus Christ.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we do pray pray for you.