The Lord’s Love

If you were paying attention, we were in Hosea 3.

Today we're in Hosea 11.

And so we have we have skipped eight chapters of Hosea.

Mainly chapters four through eleven is God um talking about the adulterous nation that Israel has become.

And so he is uh chapters four through eleven is it would have been, I think, seven weeks, if that's the right math.

Seven weeks of uh God foretelling of the wrath that is to come to Israel.

And so we are gonna skip to chapter 11 as it's kind of the turning point um in Hosea.

Um I have a ton to get to this morning, and so uh we're gonna open up the word and uh and read from it and jump into the text.

We'll be reading uh verse 1 through 11.

The word of God reads, 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 the bales and burning offerings to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk.

I took him by the arms, but they did not know that it was I who healed them.

I led them with cords of kindness, with bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on 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 refused to return to me.

The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the 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 Adma?

How can I treat you like Zeboim?

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 God and not 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 trembling like birds from Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.

This is the word of the Lord.

So, like I said, chapters four through ten is the wrath of God that's going to be coming on the nation of Israel.

And so, if you guys remember, chapters one through three, we got this picture of this prophet named Hosea, and he's told by God to go pursue this adulterous woman named Gomer.

And so we have this very personal narrative of God pursuing his people, but in a personal way, we have Hosea and Gomer, and now we're gonna be looking at more of a national picture, the nation of Israel.

So we had this personal rebellion in Gomer, and we have this personal, now this national rebellion in the nation of Israel.

We'll see their national unfaithfulness and adultery to their God.

The title of today's sermon is No Greater Love.

I hope that this morning you you do get to see the love that God the Father has for us, his people have we've been grafted into this heritage, grafted into this beautiful nation of Israel.

So we're gonna read, beginning through 1 through 11, we're gonna start in verse 1.

It's kind of the Old Testament and some of the prophetic teachings are kind of what the heck's going on here.

And so we're gonna kind of hopefully break it down.

So we we read in in verse one.

When Israel was a child, I loved him.

When Israel was a child, I loved him.

We're gonna pause.

When Israel was a child, I I loved him.

We get to see something about God's love, and that it's a love that is initiated by God.

God initiates this loving relationship.

For those who are parents in this room, we know that there's nothing that the child gets to do to get our affection.

When we birth a child, when we have, we welcome a child into our home, we simply love them because we choose to love them.

And it's no different than with God.

Can you feel the deep and personal love God has for his children?

This is amazing.

So we get to see the creator God, the one who created the heavens and the earth.

And he's reminiscing, he's looking back on when his people were a child, he loved them.

Now, why is it that God would love Israel?

Why is it that this creator God would choose to love Israel, initiate this love?

We find our answer in Deuteronomy chapter 7.

Deuteronomy 7 · chapter mention

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.

It's because the Lord loves you, simply as that.

And he's keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.

So, what is this oath that he swore to their fathers?

This oath is going back to the covenant that God made with a man named Abraham.

Abraham, a man who was called by God out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and God chose him.

He said, Leave your people, and I'm gonna take you to this faraway land.

And God gives them this promise, this great promise in Genesis chapter 12, verses one through verses one through three.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

I'm gonna turn there briefly to read this promise that Hosea is learning that God is keeping an oath to.

Now the Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house and the land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and in him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

And so this is this promise that God made with Abraham.

And then later on in the story of Abraham, uh, he doesn't have any children, right?

And so he's how am I supposed to be this great nation and all these descendants to come after me?

And he he ultimately gives birth to a child, his wife does.

I guess Abraham really didn't.

Sarah does, right?

She's old in age, and she's wondering if God is going to remain true to his promise and birth this child named Isaac.

And so this covenant was, this promise was upheld.

He has Isaac is born, and then God tells him to go sacrifice Isaac on an altar.

And so Abraham in faith listens to God and he takes Isaac and he and he walks them up to the mountain and he prepares this altar and he's ready to destroy his son.

He's ready to burn him because the Lord called him to it.

And before he lays the knife to his son, God calls out to Abraham and tells him to stop.

And he prepares this ram who's caught in a thicket, and this is the sacrifice, and because God's faith, God renews this covenant, he renews this promise to Abraham.

And we read it in chapter 22 of Genesis, verses 16 through 18.

And God said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven, as the sand that is on the seashore, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.

And so in today's text, in Hosea, we get this promise being upheld that when Israel was a child, I loved him.

And I'm going to uphold this love, this covenantal love, this oath that has been made for generations.

God set this love on the nation of Israel because he chose to love them.

We move on.

And out of Egypt I called my son.

Out of Egypt, I called my son.

This is God reflecting back to when God commissioned Moses to go to Pharaoh, when the nation of Israel were in slavery and bondage in Egypt.

And he tells Pharaoh to let his people go, to let his son, he calls the nation of Israel his son in Exodus.

He says, Let my son go that he may serve me.

A second aspect to this verse is a special exodus, from a special exodus, not like the one from Egypt, but that of Jesus after the death of Herod.

In Genesis or in Matthew chapter 2, verses 13 through 15, we read, Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise and take the child and his mother.

Matthew 2:13–15

This is Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until, I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.

And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.

And this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken to the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son.

That verse in Matthew is coming from today's text in Hosea.

So this second child that's to be called out of Egypt won't be like the first child who was rebellious and adulterous, but he will be faithful.

He will live a perfect, obedient life to the Father.

So this verse is both a reflecting back on God's love for Israel, but ultimately a pledge of the greatest blessings that are to come in Christ.

The call of both Israel and Christ in this verse are figures of the way that God has set his love on his creation.

So what does this verse mean for us today?

God is calling you into a loving relationship with him.

God is initiating love and he's calling us into a loving relationship with him.

It's a loving call initiated by God to bring us out of our spiritual slavery, to bring us out of our spiritual Egypt and into freedom of sonship and the freedom of his love.

One verse down.

Love in spite of Israel's rejection.

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

They kept sacrificing to the bales and burning offerings to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk.

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

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

The more they call, the more that I called, the more they went away.

This verse is in sharp contrast to verse one, where God loved his son Israel and rescued him from Egypt, as we see Israel's response, his child's responses and rebellion and rejection.

Israel's rebellion was twofold.

They not only refused to his loving call, they didn't respond to it, but they showed their refusal by worshiping the Baals and other false gods.

Israel chose new gods, breaking the covenant with God.

I alone am God.

And furthermore, they violated the covenant by sacrificing to them.

Yet God's love remains.

Verse 3, we get this image of a tender and patient father reminiscing back on the way that he cared for his child Egypt.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk.

I took him by the arms.

I cared for little Ephraim when he was ill and I healed their diseases.

Parents, we can we can reflect and we can relate to this, right?

It was I who took Caleb, our firstborn son, when he took his first steps.

It was I who was there protecting his head when he would fall into a table.

I I grabbed him and sometimes, well, Ian lost his teeth.

Really, Caleb hasn't lost his teeth yet, so Caleb's a little bit more sturdy.

It was I who cupped his head when we were floating in bear paddle, right?

Keep your belly up.

Don't sink.

I'm teaching him how to swim.

It was I who held his back, encouraged him to keep pedaling as I pushed him in the bike.

It was I who sat next to him in the hospital.

Couldn't heal him.

It's been a long week and I'll cry five times.

But verse 3 ends with, but they didn't know that I healed them.

They didn't know.

Can you imagine wandering 40 years in the desert?

40 years.

I can't backpack up the mountain, let alone 40 years in a desert in a wilderness.

Snakes, scorpions, whatever it might be.

No food, no water.

But God was with them as a gentle shepherd, as a loving father.

But they didn't know.

God gives this example of a loving father.

And now he gives us an example of a loving shepherd.

Verse 4.

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

I led them with cords of kindness.

If anybody's been on a farm before, you know, I get this picture of like this stubborn donkey, right?

Like you don't just like gentle cords of kindness pull this donkey along, right?

Like you have a stick, you hit it, you like tug it, maybe you prod it.

Uh I don't know if you got one of those zappers on the farm, but like it's it's usually not this gentle picture of cords of kindness leading this beast of burden along.

And furthermore, he eases the yoke on their jaws, this yoke, this symbol of slavery and servitude.

God eases the yoke on their jaws.

And he frees his child.

When they were wandering in the wilderness, God literally led his people with a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.

Like a father guiding them, he took them by the arm and he showed them the way in which they should go, the way to keep them alive.

When they were starving, they had no food and they had no water, their pets' heads were falling off.

God bent down to feed them.

And as he fed them with this miraculous manna from heaven and honey and locusts, God not only provided for his child Israel, but he kept them safe and secure.

Just make sure you're with me.

How crazy is it for the Israelites to forget this love that God has shown them, this this people.

How crazy is it?

He did all these miracles and he kept their people alive.

As they were running from Pharaoh, they cross over this sea.

And they're pinned up against it, and the sea is part, and they cross through it, and Pharaoh's armies go across and they get drowned in the sea, and God protects them.

But yet his people forget them.

They don't remember that it was him who healed them, who provided for them.

And this morning, what I want us to draw attention to is that we are no different.

Why is it so easy for us to reject God?

Why is it for us to forget the way that He has cared for us?

The way that He's nurtured us, that He's protected us, that He's loved us so deeply.

Ultimately, deep down, I think it's I think it's unbelief.

Deep down we don't believe that God is truly for us.

We don't believe that God has our best intentions in mind.

We believe in some crazy way that He has some ulterior motive.

He's really not for us.

We don't believe that God's ways are better than our own.

We make ourselves God and we think that we know what's best, and he doesn't.

How could he know?

We think we're an exception to the rule, maybe.

Like if he really knew my situation, he wouldn't have asked me to do that.

Or he wouldn't have commanded me to live life in this way because it's it just it's different for me.

It's for most other people I can see that, but not for me, right?

We don't believe that he's given us his very best.

So we search for his very best in anything and everything but God.

And we search and we search and we search until that search becomes our master.

That search becomes our God, and we find out that that thing that we were actually searching for is a tyrant.

It's not loving, it doesn't fulfill us, it doesn't keep us safe, it doesn't protect us, it lets us down.

We do this over and over.

Yet all the while, in this text we see a faithful and loving God calling for us to return to Him.

So the summary of this first section is God loves you in spite of your sin.

God loves you in spite of your sin.

Your sin does not surprise God.

Your sin doesn't surprise God.

Romans says that while we were dead and weak, Christ died for us.

While we were still sinning, Christ died for us.

He didn't die for the perfect you, he didn't die for the sanctified you, he didn't die for the one that's making all the right decisions.

While we were weak and dead and in our sin and trespasses, Christ died for us.

Amen?

Amen.

I hope that's encouraging this morning.

Your sin doesn't surprise God.

It doesn't surprise.

He stands there and he calls and he's initiating this loving relationship with you.

He loves you in spite of your sin.

Move on.

God's response to Israel's repeated rebellion.

We see this in verses five through seven.

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 the 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.

He shall not raise them up at all.

Love by means of discipline is what we see in this text.

Love by means of discipline.

Hebrews 12, 6, the Lord disciplines the one he loves.

Proverbs 13, 24.

He who spares the rod hates his child.

You ever heard the phrase, spare the rod, spoil the child?

If we as parents withhold discipline from our children, is that loving?

No, it's not loving.

It's no different with God.

It is loving of God to discipline us.

And so we see this discipline.

Verses 5 through 6, we see God's discipline that's being foretold.

Assyria is specified as the nation who will dominate and capture and destroy some of these Israelites.

It says the sword shall rage against their cities.

It'll consume the bars of their gates and devour them because of their own counsels.

In times of war, picture braveheart, right?

They're like at this castle.

What happens?

In a war, people stay out, you know, the like the gates are open, people are frolicking in the hillside.

No, they all come to the town.

They get behind this wall, they get behind this fortress, and that's their greatest protection, right?

But in this text, it says, Assyria, the sword shall rage against their city.

It'll consume the bars of their gates and devour them.

This nation is going to be overthrowing the defense of Israel.

The sword shall devour them because they've listened to their own counsels.

And after Hosea's prophecy, we this happens, this comes to pass.

God's people were stripped from their land and possession and hauled away into captivity by the Assyrians.

Why what led to this discipline?

Because they refused to return to me, verse 5.

Verse 6, because they rejected my prophets and listened to their own counsels in verse 6.

And furthermore, in verse 7, we see their repeated rebellion.

My people are bent on turning away from me.

My people are bent on turning away from me.

There's pain in that statement.

There's ownership of these people, this love, this covenantal faithfulness from God.

They're his people, and they're bent on turning from them.

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

And it continues on though they call out to the Most High, He shall not raise them up at all.

Now, what's going on here?

Though they call out to the Most High, He shall not is God abandoning?

His people?

Is God forsaking this promise that he made?

There's a difference in calling out to God to get out of our current situation and surrendering to God as your Lord.

There's a difference in calling out to God to get out of your current situation or circumstance and surrendering to God as Lord.

Hosea is a minor prophet.

We just have 14 chapters of this prophet who is telling God's people, return back to the Lord, return back to the Lord.

We have all sorts of other prophets and years of God through the prophets coming to tell the nation of Israel, return to the Lord, and they reject him.

Repeated rebellion.

The more God called, the more they went away.

They're bent on turning away from God.

And so what happens?

God, as a loving father, disciplines his child.

Parents, what happens right before you spank your kid?

They cry out, no, please, mercy, please, no.

Please, no.

Right?

It's what happens.

Now, sometimes we choose to give grace, sometimes we choose to give mercy.

But it wouldn't be loving for us to withhold discipline every time.

Would it?

Our kids would never obey us.

They would know that I don't have to do this because I can just cry out and everything will be fine.

But that's not them submitting to you as the mother and father that God has placed in their lives.

That's them crying out to get out of their circumstance.

And that's what we see in this text.

Though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up.

God's discipline is necessary to bring about correction, restoration.

And like a loving father, he will not spare the rod from his children.

So, in summary of this portion of text, God disciplines those whom he loves.

God disciplines those whom he loves.

And this brings us to verse 8, where we see this love that is matchless.

Love that is matchless.

Verse 8 should read like this.

And because Israel is bent on turning from me, and because they refuse to exalt my name, now I'm determined to destroy them.

I will never show them mercy anymore.

But it doesn't read like that.

We read on, verse 8 through 10.

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

How can I make you like Adma?

How can I treat you like Zeboim?

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 God and not man, the holy one in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

I will not come in wrath.

According to Deuteronomy chapter 21, we get the law of God and the legal complaints made by a parent for a rebellious or a wayward son.

Deuteronomy 21 · chapter mention

It was legally justified to take that son out in front of the people and to have him stoned to death.

That's the legal.

And God would have done no wrong or injustice to wipe his people out.

But that's not what he does.

How shall I give you up away from?

Like a tender father reasoning within himself toward his wayward son, how can I do it?

How can I give you up?

Israel's ripe for ruin, but God cannot give her up.

He cannot ultimately destroy her.

And so of demanding this rebellious child to be put to death, God has decided to limit his punishment.

He could never finally give her up like Admar or Zeboem.

These are two towns that were destroyed when God's wrath poured down on Sodom and Gomorrah.

They're wiped off the earth.

He couldn't give them up like that.

And we read the most amazing verse in this entire chapter, potentially all of Hosea.

My heart recoils within me.

My heart recoils within me.

This verse I stuck on a long time.

I think there were like 30 verses that could have been a whole sermon.

But this is amazing.

This beautiful glimpse of our Father's great love and compassion.

His heart literally turns within himself.

Abandoning his people is repulsive to his very being.

His heart recoils, it turns.

He doesn't have it in him to abandon his children, to abandon his child, to abandon Israel.

You ever had that gut feeling when you're about to do something that you knew was wrong?

You're like, this isn't right, this is gonna be bad.

Maybe it was indulging on something you shouldn't have done, or just simply this is just a dumb idea.

This is a bad idea.

I like to take stupid risks sometimes, and sometimes you're in too deep, and you're like, this was really dumb.

This was foolish.

But we walk, we go through with those gut feelings, right?

We feel it, shouldn't do it, and we still give in to it, right?

We still move forward with it.

God will not and cannot go against his heart.

His heart deeply desires salvation and not destruction.

So why will God not take this punishment to the same extreme?

His answer is found within himself.

It's his heart.

It's moved towards mercy.

It would appear at first glance that his mind is changed.

Chapters 4 through 10 are God telling, foretelling this wrath, and before this, five through seven, as God is saying, This is what I'm going to do.

And now he says that I'm not going to do it.

My heart recoils.

I can't do it.

Has God changed?

Has God changed his mind?

God does not change.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Malachi says, I, the Lord, do not change.

Samuel says, I am not a man that I should repent, or the son of man that I should change my mind.

It should give us hope and comfort this morning.

If God does not remain true to his promises, he would cease to be God.

So we see that God's love is actually conditioned by his very character.

I am God, and I'm not man.

If he was man, his passion would have overpowered his compassion.

If he was man, he would have lost his temper.

He would have forgot all these wonderful promises that he had made, and he would have become unfaithful to them.

And the nation of Israel would have been destroyed as a result.

But by grace, God is not man.

His reply is, I am not man.

Israel, you have not exhausted my mercy.

Israel, you have not exhausted my patience.

Israel, my grace is greater than all of your sin.

Men would seek revenge.

I seek for your salvation.

I seek for your well-being.

Praise God that he is not like me.

Praise God, he's not like you.

Maybe.

Brian, you're a great guy.

We read on, verse 9.

Verse 10, sorry.

They shall go after the Lord.

He will roar like a lion.

And when he roars, his children 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.

This is odd, right?

Anyone ever been around a lion?

I really have not been, besides like behind a gate, right?

But when a lion roars, it's not something that I want to be around if it's roaring at me.

Right?

You see these safaris and these guys are out there and they're, or these shooting fails.

And they're like, oh, I'm gonna take out this with this poison dart or whatever the heck they got.

And this lion just destroys the hunter, right?

We're reading Narnia with the boys right now, and I love the picture that you get in it, but when Aslan comes onto the scene, his people don't run from him.

They run to him.

And so we get this picture in here, the roar of the lion.

It draws his people to him, not drives them from him.

The roar of this lion draws us to him and not from him.

Such a contrast from verse 2: the more they that I called, the more they went away.

This time there's a call that is having God's people pursue after him, not run away from him.

And when he roars, God will fulfill his covenantal blessing.

This is a picture that we get in the book of Revelation where Jesus is called the lion of the tribe of Judah, and when he calls, people from the east and the west shall come running to him.

We get this in this text like birds from Egypt.

They're not gonna run, they're actually going to fly like doves.

They will return to the Lord.

And not to be sojourners, not to be wandering around aimlessly.

But he's gonna give them a home.

He will return them to their homes.

This covenantal blessing and prosperity and protection, this unwavering commitment and love.

The love of God is fixed by his very being.

The love of God is fixed by his very being.

This brings us to our gospel conviction this morning that there's no greater love than Christ crucified for sinners.

There's no greater love than Christ crucified for sinners.

Jesus is the display of God's greatest love.

At Calvary, through perfect obedience to the point of death, Jesus overcame our rebellion as he was rejected by his own father.

And as he was murdered and buried, he took to the tomb our record of debts, our record of wrongs, and he left them there.

They are no more.

And as he rose, he not only triumphed over death, he not only triumphed over sin, but he was given all authority and power and a name that is above all other names, and he has chosen to make you an object of his greatest affection.

He has chosen to make you an object of his greatest affection.

It's God who initiates this love and he's calling out to you.

Will you answer him?

Will you answer him this morning?

Pastor, you don't understand what I've done.

If you really knew what I've done, if you really knew my past, if you really knew who I was deep down, the thoughts that run through my mind.

Like a loving father to a child, God's reply is, I am not man.

I have more mercy.

I have more patience.

I have more long suffering.

I'm more understanding.

I have more grace.

You have not exhausted it.

I am God and not man.

My name is not for your destruction, but for your restoration.

The promise we get this morning is that all who come at the call of the gospel, who turn from their rebellion, who turn from their sin, shall have a place.

They will have an inheritance.

They'll be a people of blessing once more.

Blessed sonship and daughtership, if that's a word, of the Most High God.

And this is not a result of your own doing, so that any of us may boast.

But it's a result of God's unwavering love, his matchless love, his unwavering commitment to his very being.

Romans 8, for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There's no greater love.

No greater love.

Son, by grace you've been saved.

Daughter, by grace, you have been saved.

Church, by grace we have been saved.

How do we respond to this?

What do we see in this text is a way to response.

What was the issue here?

God is calling to the people, and they didn't turn to him.

They didn't answer his loving call.

They continued in their rebellion.

Practically, we need to repent.

Some of us, all of us are living in sin.

Some of us is more visible from the outside.

All of us are sin, have sin.

So we need to reflect this morning and repent of how we have strayed away from God, how we have rejected this grace and rejected Him as God.

And we need to turn back towards Him.

Not only repent of our sin, but turn towards God.

This morning, this might be for the first time for someone in this room to see this great love that is in Christ Jesus.

That He loves you as you are, not as the perfect person, not as a churchgoer, not as someone who has all the answers to all these questions in this wonderful book.

But he loves you as you sit today.

And he's calling you into relationship with him.

He's calling you out of sin, out of slavery to sin, out of this bondage, to be freed from this yoke, this evil master, whatever it may be in your life that has you so entangled.

And he's calling into you this blessed relationship as a son and daughter.

Secondly, we need to rejoice.

We need to rejoice this morning.

This great love is given freely as grace, not as a result of our own doing.

It's simply by grace.

And this morning, scriptures tell us that he spared not his own son.

And that it pleased the Father to crush Jesus.

It pleased him that he might spare us, that he might ransom us, he might pay our record of debt in full.

We can rejoice that by grace we have been adopted.

What Romans 11 says, that we, through the rebellion of Israel, we as Gentiles, we as non-Israel, get grafted into this wonderful family.

By grace, we are grafted in this morning.

And that should cause us to be able to rejoice.

So I want to give us some time to reflect on this text, to maybe sit quietly and pray, to think about the ways that we personally have rebelled and rejected against God and walked our own ways.

I'm going to be in the back as we close down our response time.

I'll be by the welcome desk.

I would love to pray with you.

I would love to process anything that's running through your mind.

If you would like more answers to questions you may have, if you'd like simply just to be prayed for, I would love to pray with you.

We end all of our gatherings with a time of response, and so we're going to have the band come forward in a minute, and they'll be singing songs in our time of response.

But every week we partake in communion, and it's no different today.

Today we are being invited as those who have turned from sin and have called Jesus as our Lord and Savior, those who have placed our faith and confidence in the finished work of the cross and not our own doing.

This morning we need to come forward to the table and be refreshed to our souls of this promise that we have, this great love.

And so we have bread on the plates, and that resembles Christ's body, which was broken for us on the cross, and we have wine in the cups and in the in the bowl that represents Christ's blood that was poured out for us at Calvary.

And this morning you can come forward and eat and drink fully, being refreshed of this reminder of this great love that we have in Christ Jesus.

We ask that if you do not claim to have Jesus as your Lord, if you don't claim to uh want Christ in your life, or you're not quite sure if you really do trust God, if you really have Him as your Lord and Savior, we ask that you would just either sit quietly in your chair and not come forward to the table, or maybe come to the back and talk to me about that.

We would not want you to come forward and to eat this bread and drink this cup, and if that's not the desires of your heart.

And lastly, we will join our band and singing songs and rejoicing of the great love.

That his mercy is more.

They're stronger than darkness.

They're new every morning.

We will sing and rejoice as God's people that have been redeemed and ransomed and purchased by the precious blood of Jesus.