Hosea: The Father Who Refuses to Give You Up

When Israel was a child, I loved him.

And out of Egypt I called my son.

The more they were called, the more they went away.

They kept sacrificing to bows and burning offerings to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk.

I taught them by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke of their jaws.

And I bent down to them and fed them.

They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.

The sword shall rage against their cities, consume their bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels.

My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

How can I make you like Adama?

How can I treat you like Zobra?

My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender.

I will not execute my burning anger.

I will not again destroy Ephraim.

For I am a God, for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

They shall go after the Lord, he will roar like a lion.

When he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west.

They shall come, they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declare the Lord.

Amen.

And um kind of like because of the idea of just having a father who is present, who cares, who sees, who simply doesn't leave.

So, but I need to be careful this morning.

Uh, I don't want to bleed my my issues on the church.

So I want to be careful.

And I wrote here that my story basically isn't the measure of everyone's story, and certainly it isn't the measure of your story.

If if you have a good experience of a father, we we praise God for that.

Um, and and some of you have had wonderful fathers who uh I've I've met, some of you are wonderful fathers, and so kind of like the definition of fatherhood, in as far as trauma is concerned, shouldn't define what fatherhood is meant to be.

But also, just in general, uh, whenever we think about earthly fathers, we shouldn't resolve then to equate that to the fatherhood of God.

So let me pray for us as we jump into their word today.

Lord, we thank you, Bawingwele, for your kindness.

Thank you for your grace, thank you for your word.

Thank you, Lord, that you love us.

Lord, I pray for the preaching of your word this morning that it may glorify you, it may honor you, may we enjoy your fatherhood.

May we see ourselves as those who are chosen and loved by you.

And so, Lord, I pray that this may be true of us, true of those who don't know you as well.

That even this morning, Lord, you invite us to the table to dine with you.

Over the privilege, Lord.

We can call you Father, can call you Abba Father, and so we are in the name of Jesus, amen.

My father drove me away so harshly, but why?

Those are words by uh a lady called Busim Sho, uh, a song that was popularized by uh I'd say uh Black Coffee's Prodigy Kuloda song.

It's the cry of a child friends that is trying to make sense of rejection, especially in a city like ours.

In fact, if I'm being frank, in a country like South Africa, the idea of fatherhood is plagued with a sense of sores and scars.

That the idea of fatherlessness is is a question that sits very close to many of our hearts.

Some of us don't care to admit it that it's it's it's before us every day.

We are confronted with the harsh reality of a fatherless society.

My father drove me away harshly, but why?

Josiah Levin basically turns that question on its head uh because here, friends, it is not the father who keeps walking away, but it's the child.

It's the child who keeps walking away from the father again and again.

And friends, this basically will expose something very uncomfortable about all of us, even as Christians, as it were.

That when love has been shown to us, when uh care has been proven to us, there is something in us that still goes looking for something somewhere else.

And the question is why?

Why do we keep looking for life away from the one who has loved us all along?

And friends, the understanding of that question that we want to ask is that this will highlight, as it were, the Holy Father's love.

That this holy father keeps loving your children who don't want to be loved by him, and that's what's gonna make verse 8 a trip.

How can the question there where God is asking, how can I give you up?

Or Ephraim?

How can I how can I let you go?

How can I give you up?

Friends, today Jose is going to introduce us to a father who actually refuses to give us up.

But before we even understand just how astonishing that question is, friends, we need to kind of see something first.

We need to grapple with this reality of what kind of father had uh what kind of father is this who actually keeps uh rearing these children who refuse to be kept, who actually keep walking away.

So this morning, friends, I want to highlight that with these four points.

The father who loved us first, the father whose heart is broken, the father who refuses to give you up, and lastly, the father who brings his children home.

Let's look at it in verse 1 to 4.

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

That's the father who loved first, friends.

The idea here is this that the word son is basically highlighting the nature of relationship.

At the very beginning, God called us what?

Sons.

To to emphasize friends' relationship, to emphasize belonging.

Long before Israel had land, long before Israel had a king, long before Israel had anything to show for themselves, long before Israel even had works.

God told Moses to tell Pharaoh in Exodus 4, verse 22 to 23.

Exodus 4:22–23

Israel is my firstborn son, let my son go that he may worship me.

Other translations say that he may serve me.

Notice the order, friends.

Israel doesn't rescue itself and then earn the right to be called sons or earn the right to belong.

God claims them first, then acts to bring them out.

The Exodus wasn't, friends, merely God getting slaves out of Egypt.

It was a father coming to get his son.

That's grace.

That's that's grace, friends.

It's always grace first.

Look at verse 2.

Look at verse 2, it says, The more they were called, the more they went away.

It's like a jarring verse that contradicts it, as it were, that juxtaposes verse 1.

The more they were called, the more they went away.

When Israel was a child, I loved him.

Out of Egypt, I called my son.

But now in verse 2, the more they were called, the more they what?

They went away.

The more.

The more the father called, the further they ran.

And still, friends, even in verse 2, God keeps describing himself as the father.

They went away, they kept sacrificing to bows and burning offerings to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk.

I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cause of kindness, with the bands of love.

I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws.

I bent down to them and fed them.

Aye, aye, aye.

That's a picture, friends, of a father, as it were, bending down, teaching a child to to walk.

Come, like ready to catch the child before they they they even fall, to break the fall.

By putting, as the NIV says, the child to the the cheek of the father.

Oh, what a beautiful picture, friends.

Father bending down, father steadying the child, the father who is who is loving consistently the child.

That's the picture of love, friends.

But in verse 2, the more they were called, the more they what they went away.

In verse 3, they did not know that I healed them.

It's not an innocent ignorance, as it were.

They experienced the healing without recognizing, friends, the healer.

They enjoyed the gifts without losing the gifts and lost sight of the giver.

And friends, that's not hard to imagine in our city.

You build your career, you you have this uh kind of development of resilience.

You you grow a network you can call on when things fall apart.

And friends, that that is not wrong in and of itself.

But ask yourself this question: Has God's provision quietly been described as just your own competence?

Has God's provision, has God's healing been just described as just your own sense of grit and resilience?

And if if we are being honest, friends, we we need to believe that about God this morning.

And ask ourselves this question daily.

Have we forsaken the giver for the gift?

What if more of your life has been a gift than you actually realize?

What if more of your life has been the reality of the grace that God has shown you?

And you fail to point to that now.

Look at verse 4.

Kind of like translations differ here, but there's a sense in which the picture is exactly the same.

There's codes of kindness, there's bonds of love.

I bent down to what?

To feed them.

There are verbs here, there's there's loving that is happening, there's calling that is happening, there's teaching that is happening, there's a sense of being carried, there's a sense of healing, there's a sense of being led and fed before our say our friends takes us fully into the rebellion of these children.

He's basically immersing us into the love of the father.

That the father had not failed to love them.

The father was present, the father was caring, the father was there.

And the more they were called, the more they were, friends, went away.

So, friends, if this is the father they had, why did they keep walking away from him?

It's like it's not like the typical father we'd you'd point to down this down the road who's not there.

This was a present, active father, but they chose to walk away.

The question is why?

That leads us, friends, to the father's broken heart in point number two.

Verse 5 says, They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.

Why?

Why did they do that?

Why move out of the care of the father?

And friends, behind this refusal to stay is basically this old lie that life with the father is restrictive.

Come on, give me space.

It feels like there's there's a sense of restrictiveness that that that that's the lie that man, God doesn't want you to be free.

There must be something fuller out there.

There must be something more outside of his care.

It's the lie that was whispered, friends, in the Garden of Eden.

God is holding out on you.

And Israel's friends refused this reality.

They refused to live under God's care, under God's law.

They were persistently rebellious.

Friends, in other words, as you read the text, as I know, I know here's some homework.

We give homework at him clearly.

Deuteronomy 21, verse 18 to 21 basically shows us that a child who refuses to be fathered by God deserves death.

Deuteronomy 21:18–21

And Israel at this point in time has become that son.

In Hosea 11, verse 6, then it says, The sword shall rage against their cities.

Hosea 11:6

In verse 7, it says, My people are burnt on turning away from me.

Notice, friends, God is still calling them my people.

So this judgment of the Lord is not detached, as it were.

This is the grief of a father whose love has been rejected.

One of the authors whom I got this basically subtitle from Tim Chester makes this point that man, this is a picture of the father's broken heart.

This father who loved, this father who taught, who carried, who healed, who fed them, is now watching the children continually turn away from him.

That hurts, friends.

And God is showing us that picture.

And I do want to admit this, there's nothing wrong with us being resourceful people.

Absolutely nothing wrong with us being people who troubleshoot, who create formulas, and I like this one, excel spreadsheets.

We want to just like create things and build networks and strategize and open our spreadsheets.

Basically, friends, that competence is a gift.

Planning can be an act of wisdom.

But what happens when your resourcefulness makes dependence feel like weakness?

When you don't have answers to the burning questions of your life, and you're like, man, I feel weak.

I can't depend on anything or anyone.

What do you need?

Um, in other words, to to feel secure in your life before you can actually get some rest.

Is it your career?

Is it your money?

Is it your marriage?

Is it your reputation?

Is it control?

Is it the liberation of your body?

Some of these things, friends, we we do sympathize because the pool of our city says, hey, this is how you get freedom, this is how you get um life becoming much easier.

It's for you to to to fix yourself.

But but Hosea says here, no, you can't.

You need you need a helper, you need another, you need a father.

But friends, the idea here as well to say you can't fix yourself with these things that we have access to is surely clearly highlighted in verse 7.

Look at it.

My people are bent away.

A few years ago, I learned a beautiful word, proclivity.

They have a bent, they have a a kind of like a knee-jerk reaction to self-dependence, a a knee jerk, knee-jerk reaction to live life independent of God.

And friends, our city will uh kind of give us this delusion that we we can do it ourselves.

Build the right systems, we build the right companies, we we we have the right strategies, we we we consult the right consultants, BCG and all of that.

I hope I don't get sued.

But the point here, friends, is this we we build so many things to answer questions of life, but but what happens when all those things fall apart?

When all those things can't meet the question of meaning and significance in your life, when these things actually enslave you.

Now, friends, by the end of verse 7, God has closed the case, and then although they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.

These loved people are still living, these these cold people are still refusing to return.

These these people have a bent and are unable to straighten themselves, and and God says they deserve this judgment.

And friends, this is what makes verse 8 unbelievably shocking.

Says God, how can God says, how can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I give you up?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

After everything, the love, the caring, the healing, the living, the refusal to return, God still says, You you've you've spat in my face, but how can I give you up?

How can I, how can I, how can I make you like Admar?

How can I treat you like Zeboim?

That's that's 11 verse 8.

These are now small cities that were destroyed alongside Sodom and Gomorrah.

And and Moses later pointed to them as a a picture of, as it were, devastating disaster in Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 23.

Deuteronomy 29:23

Just read Deuteronomy, that's your homework.

But the point is this, friends, that here we see a God who is refusing.

He's he's refusing to do something worse than just merely exile.

So, friends, what does he do?

He disciplines them.

That's what the verse 5 means.

They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, meaning they will be exiled, they will be disciplined.

But but verse 8 again still shocks me.

My my heart recoils within me.

My my compassion grows warm and and tender.

You know, like scripture as we've been doing theology Tuesday, we we're learning this word, and I I keep kind of like uh repeating it.

The anthropopathism, the the the the the idea of God revealing a sense of human emotion for us to get a sense of relating to him.

And here he says, you we know that God never changes.

We know God is uh the word is the impassability of God.

He he's not an emotional person like us.

We have uh we call emotional roller coasters, God never is.

Consistent, he's unchanging, right?

But here we see a sense of a picture of God, as it were, feeling like conflicted.

You just spat in my face.

I am judging you, but my heart, my heart is is recoiling.

I can't help but be compassionate towards you.

I can't help but be tender.

You you may you you may sin all the more, but I want to show you more mercy.

Not because I'm I I I I I not because your sin is is okay with me.

No, I I hate it.

I'm judging you, I'm sending you to exile because I hate what you're becoming.

I hate what you unbecoming because this is not who you were meant to be.

I I hate what this is doing to you.

I'm gonna remove it from you.

I'm gonna send Assyrians, an evil nation who is not my people, to act as an head of judgment towards you so that I may redeem and restore you.

I hate this, but I'm conflicted.

I don't want to do this.

I don't know of a parent who gets a kick, but they are out of taking a belt and putting some lash on their children.

Lashes on their children.

Come here.

It's about time because it's gonna get I'm gonna enjoy this.

And no, it's discipline is is is not nice.

It's not nice.

And God here, friends, as it were, is showing us his heart, that his his love is settled.

It's the language of the Father's love.

And it tells us why in verse 9.

It says, I will not execute my burning anger.

I will not again destroy Ephraim.

For I am God and not a man, the holy one in your midst.

I will not come in wrath.

We normally associate holiness with a severe picture.

But here God says, I will respond in mercy because I'm holy.

In other words, God says, My opposition to sin, my opposite, I am pure, I am I am I am opposed to evil.

In other words, God does not shrug his shoulders as like not knowing what to do with sin.

But Hosea shows us another dimension of holiness here.

God is saying I am different, I'm not like men.

I'm not a man.

This this God is not an enlarged version of ourselves.

He's not a man.

His mercy is not exhausted by our sins.

You see, man's patience runs out.

You you you see it on daily talk shows.

I I wash my hands with this one.

I let the let let let the world see see what it does with him.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm locking my house.

This is not his home anymore.

It's yeah, I'm done with him.

We can only betray it so many times.

Until we say, I'm I'm done.

I'm done.

You are not my child, I'm done.

But God doesn't.

Says, I'm the holy one in your midst.

I'm set apart.

Uh he he he's he's set apart yet present, he's he's different, he's he's transcendent yet near.

He he's not watching Israel's collapse from a safe distance.

He's he's the one in the midst, still calling them his own.

And uh I quoted John Newton here, reflecting on this verse, he says, if we had offended men or angels, or we have offended our as we have offended our creator and redeemer, and they had permission and power to punish us, our case would be utterly desperate.

Only he who made us is able to bear with us.

All the attributes of the infinite God must of course be equally infinite.

As is his majesty, so his mercy.

As his majesty, so is his mercy.

Friends, we tend to assume God's severity as a means of absence of love, but actually, here correction is not rejection, it is God loving us.

And and and and Hosea won't let us say God is indifferent.

Your ruin doesn't matter to me.

No, you wouldn't you won't let us say that this father cares, friends.

This father cares and says, you belong to me, and I will not treat your your ruin as though it doesn't matter.

I will discipline my people, I'll discipline my children, and I will not finally abandon them.

I will not abandon them.

And friends, I want to say this clearly.

If you've spent your life trying to prove your worth, trying to prove that man, I don't need anyone.

I'm competent, I'm self-sufficient, I'm always in control.

Here, this dependence is not a defect in being a son, in being a child.

Being dependent is what children do.

For them not to be to be independent, it's just like the child would be weird.

No, I don't need you to buy me a school uniform.

I don't need you to pack my lunch.

Who asked you to peg my lunch?

What do you mean, pay school fees?

I don't need you to pay school fees.

I I can I can handle it.

It's it's absurd, friends.

It's absurd.

So, friends, being dependent is what we are, is what we do.

But but now we are left with the question: how can a holy God refuse finally to give his guilty people up without pretending they're guilty, their guilt doesn't matter?

Hosea gives us then the promise.

And and from where Hosea stands, friends, we cannot yet see how God will accomplish it, but the rest of the Bible does show us.

Remember how the chapter began.

Look at it in verse 1.

Out of Egypt I called my son.

Hosea is speaking about Israel here, and and and centuries later, this very verse, Hosea 11, verse 1, is is quoted in Matthew chapter 2.

Hosea 11:1 Matthew 2 · chapter mention

He he takes those words and applies them to Jesus returning home, returning from Egypt, as it were.

Israel, the loved son, called out of Egypt and turned away.

Jesus, the beloved son, called out of Egypt, faithful all the way to the cross.

And exactly where Israel failed, friends, the faithful son is handed over for unfaithful sons and daughters who are here this morning in Rosebank.

Father and son together accomplishing one saving purpose.

God's judgment against sin isn't ignored, friends.

His saving love isn't abandoned.

He punishes sin rightly so on the cross.

And he expresses love rightly so on the cross to undeserving sinners that are you and me.

Punishes sin on the one who does not deserve it, on the faithful one.

So, friends, our union with Christ here is a union of a holy one with a rebellious people.

And that's why we are called, friends, adopted children.

Romans 8 verse 15 says, You have received the spirit of what?

Romans 8:15

Adoption by whom you cry, Abba Father.

We have received the spirit of what, friends?

Of adoption by whom you cry, Abba Father.

So you haven't just escaped punishment, but God has made you a son, a child.

And watch what it does.

It does not just like say, okay, I've forgiven you, find your way.

Says, come home.

Says what?

Come home.

Number four, the father who brings his children home.

If you've noticed, friends, when there are kids in church, we move swiftly.

What?

It's over, we're done.

The sermon is about to finish.

This is a record.

The father who brings his children home, that's basically verses 10 to 11.

Look at it.

They shall go after the Lord, he will roar like a lion.

When he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west.

They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria.

And I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.

As I mentioned, friends, we live in an age of kind of like fatherlessness.

That's the context we are in in Johannesburg, specifically in South Africa, if I'm being real with you.

And one of the ways, friends, the ache of fatherlessness has become such an open conversation, an open wound, a fabric of our society, is through shows like Utata ako.

Or I would even go as far back as saying, think about another show called Kumbulae Kaya.

Story after story, friends, people are searching for those from whom they have become estranged.

And so often is those people are estranged fathers.

And I can still hear, friends, the program of uh Kumbule Kaya as it ends.

Uh they they they they show picture after picture of uh baya kumbule kaya baya kumbule kaya the host is appealing to the the the estranged man come home, come home, they miss you.

But look at what Hosea does, friends.

In verse 7, friends, he's described these people as who have a burnt to turn away, they can't come home in and of themselves.

But in verse 11, he says, They shall go after the Lord, he will roar like a lion.

When he rolls, his children shall come trembling from the west, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.

Verse 5, friends, we see their inability, they refused to turn to return to me.

Verse 7, they had this bent away from him.

Verse 10, they shall go after the Lord.

What happened?

It is God who says, I will return them.

It isn't Israel finally getting their act together, it is the God who rose.

Look at the verbs, friends.

He will roar.

When he roars, his children will come.

I will return them.

The father who refused to give up, give them up, is now determined to what?

To bring them home.

That's the beauty of this text, friends.

Normally, when a lion roars, everything runs away.

But here, friends, the lion is roaring and his children are coming toward him.

They come trembling.

The picture is like they are birds.

Usually, when a lion uh roars, the birds fly away.

But here the lion is roaring and the birds are coming home.

It will take God for you to return to God.

It will take the roaring lion for you to return to God.

And when he roars, friends, you can't resist that grace.

His grace is is irresistible, friends.

It doesn't eliminate response, as it were, friends, but the the idea here is the grace lures you in.

This lion, when he roars, people follow.

And they really repent.

But God has to roar first.

Grace makes, friends, the return a reality.

And whenever the gospel of Jesus Christ, friends, is faithfully preached, faithfully proclaimed, and in that sense, friends, the lion is still roaring.

People are still coming home.

We're not in a helpless society where we can live with the narrative of Kumbulekayah and Utata ako.

The narrative can change.

It is changed by the roaring of God's word, redeeming broken hearts and mending people and reconciling them to the Father who created them, and those people then being able to reconcile with other people.

That's how the gospel changes a nation.

That's how the gospel transforms cities, friends.

It's through this word that rose even today.

And here's the wonder of the gospel, friends.

The lion who rose to bring us home is the lamb who was slain to make this homecoming even possible.

He's both lion and lamb.

Last quote, I think.

Richard Simps makes this point.

He says, What is the gospel itself but a merciful moderation in which Christ's obedience is esteemed ours and our sins laid upon him, wherein God, from being a judge, becomes a father, pardoning our sins and accepting our obedience.

Though feeble and blemished, we are now brought to heaven under the covenant of grace by a way of love and mercy.

Heaven is home.

And we don't get there by our gate.

Don't get there by our works, as it were.

It's by his loving mercy.

It's by way of love and mercy.

That's how children get home.

Not because their obedience became impressive.

Not because people bent on turning away suddenly found enough courage to put their lives again back in place, as it were.

Friends, it's by mercy and what?

Grace.

It's by love and mercy that this obedience of Jesus Christ, the faithful Israel, is made ours.

It's counted as ours.

Our sins are laid on him on the cross.

And in Christ, we don't merely escape the judge, but we become people who have a home.

People who have a father in heaven.

As I close, friends, I'm gonna close with this illustration of Luke 15.

It just was a burning reality as I was thinking about it.

Luke 15, where when Jesus wanted to show us, friends, the heart of the father toward a returning sinner, he told us of a story about another son who left his father.

A son who went looking for life away from home, a son who wasted what his father had given him, a son who eventually came to his senses and began the long journey back, rehearsing the speech.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

He expects a sense of like a negotiating term of this.

This is how I'm gonna negotiate myself back into my father's house.

But Jesus says, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and started running.

He started running, the father ran, the son is coming home, preparing to negotiate.

The father is already running toward him.

And what does the father do?

He gives him his robe, gives him a ring, puts shoes on his feet, and then he brings a fattened cuff.

He says, Bring a fattened cuff and kill it.

And let us eat and celebrate.

For my son is home.

Friends, that's the same father Hosea has been showing us all along.

The father whose children turn away, whose compassion who turn away, but as as his compassion grows, his his tender warmness is towards them.

And now home, friends, there's a table.

This table is not incidental, friends.

It's a table for those who are saying, I have a home in Jesus Christ.

I have a family in Christ.

This is this is the table that says, I Jesus has been my door, Jesus is my bread, Jesus is my life, Jesus is the one who has made me, who has formed me.

This is who I belong to.

I have a home.

This is a table for undeserving sinners who've placed their trust in Jesus Christ.

See this this body was broken for me.

This this blood was was poured out for the forgiveness of my sins.

None of us who who eat of Christ spiritually, so friends, are coming as people who had a great week or a bad week.

It's about his finished work.

The one who lived a sinless, perfect life and died a sinner's death.

Now, this is a display of the message that continues to roar, friends.

That there's a home for you, there's a table for you, a table to eat with him.

Where he says, I am yours and you are mine.

And it's all because of my grace.

Now friends, I don't want to be deceptive here and say, Hey, we tell our eager, zonke zonke come.

No.

This table is for those who believe in Christ.

So if you're not a Christian this morning, if you haven't placed your custom your trust in Jesus, I'd say for today, don't take the food.

Don't don't participate, or rather take Jesus.

The substance.

I want this father.

I wanna place my life in the care of this father.

I've known fathers my whole life, but I've never heard of a father who who runs to me.

I know fathers who fold their hands in pride.

I know fathers who ignore phone calls.

I know fathers who leave.

But this father runs to me.

This father in John 3, verse 16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.

John 3:16

That whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have home, have everlasting life.

And so I would say to you this morning, would you place your trust in Jesus?

But for you who are stumbling or who are thriving, this is an invitation.

Come, take this meal and be nourished by communing with Christ.

May the blessing of communing with Christ be what nourishes you this morning.

So friends, as we're going to do.