God's Relentless Love

So, continuing now in our sermon series, Hosea chapter 3.

Hosea 3 · chapter mention

When we've been looking at this sermon series, we've been talking about how do we take this Old Testament minor prophet, right?

And minor doesn't mean less important.

We've kind of hit that already.

It just means that he wrote smaller chunks of scripture.

How do we take this Old Testament minor prophet with all this craziness going on in this story, right?

We have uh worship of false gods, we have child sacrifices, temple prostitutes, we have judgment and wrath coming down from God, we have all this language of culture that we don't understand and can't really relate to.

How do we take this prophet and translate him into a modern-day context?

Because what we believe is that all of God's word, from Genesis to Revelation, is for the benefit of the church.

And we believe that we can actually see Christ Jesus in every aspect of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

And so our work is to unpack and expound upon the scriptures to see Jesus more clearly.

Now, I think what we've done throughout this sermon series has been pretty good.

Now, I haven't been the only one preaching, so this isn't some type of humble brag, but uh we have been doing a pretty good job at that.

But here's where we come to this morning.

On Hosea chapter three, we come to probably one of the most difficult narrative portions of this whole book.

It's uncomfortable, it's hard to think through, it's hard to place yourself in the story, it's hard to really fathom that something like this could have ever taken place.

It's a difficult narrative.

But here's something I want us to think about.

There's this theologian and pastor named James Montgomery Boyce.

He was the senior pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and as he he he's he's well known for his commentary writing, his great exegetical preaching of the scriptures, and this is what he says about Hosea chapter 3.

Hosea 3 · chapter mention

He says it's the greatest chapter in the Bible.

The greatest chapter in the Bible.

So our work, our effort this morning is that we're gonna toil and labor through Hosea 3 to see it as that.

The greatest chapter in the Bible.

Let's read it together, church, this morning.

Hosea three, one through five, and it's full.

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

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

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

You shall not play the whore or belong to another man, so will I also be to you.

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

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

This is the word of the Lord.

May God bless the reading and the proclamation of his promises.

So, first off, what we have to do is as we approach this opening verse is this we have to understand one thing.

To truly know God, we must know him as a faithful husband.

To truly know God, we must know him as a faithful husband.

Now, this might seem very odd to many of us because this is not the normal relationship type of which we're taught to commune or relate to God.

We have other ones that we are very, very familiar with, right?

It's often common for us to try and know the Lord through different types of relationships.

We have the relationship types of king, shepherd, father.

These are very common ways for us to seek to know the Lord.

If you've grown up in the church in any measure, you know these relationship types.

You've tried to relate to the Lord in these ways, as a child does to a father, as a servant does to a king, as a sheep does to a shepherd.

Yet to fully know how we are in relationship with God, we must also know him as a husband.

He's a faithful husband.

And he's a faithful husband who is fully good for his bride.

He's a faithful husband who is fully for the good of his bride.

You see, the Lord seeks to demonstrate this relationship type through the life of Hosea.

And here is where we see the fullness of our rebellion and depravity, and here we also see the fullness of the relentless love that God has for us.

You see, we are to know God as a husband.

This is what he's done through the whole book of Hosea is he's called Hosea to live this parabolic life, to marry this prostitute named Gomer, to be faithful unto her, and to care for her and to be good for her.

And he says, the reason that I'm calling you to do this, Hosea, is because my people need to know me as husband.

And they need to know me.

They need to know themselves as my bride.

And so we have to work to understand how we relate to God in this specific type as a husband.

And I'm hoping that we see this clearly.

And so the first command that he gives to Hosea in the beginning verse of this chapter is he says, Go again.

Go again.

If we remember back to Hosea chapter 1, he tells Hosea, the Lord speaks to him, go and marry a woman, an adulterous woman.

Hosea 1 · chapter mention

Here in the top of chapter 3, he says, go again.

And so we have to look to where we currently find the state of Hosea himself.

You see, Hosea is without a wife.

At this point in time, he's abandoned.

He's alone, he's destitute.

He's been proclaiming the words of God to the people of Israel and has watched the people that he has loved most abandon him.

While proclaiming difficult messages of God's judgment on the sin of his chosen people, Hosea has been personally devastated by the sinful pursuits of Gomer.

And at potentially one of the lowest points of his life, and when he's listening to the next words that God has for him, beckoning God to give him hope, life.

Imagine yourself in that situation.

Imagine yourself, Hosea.

You've been faithful to God, you kind of knew what you were getting into in the first place, but if we're honest, there's no way Hosea could have fully known what was going to happen in his marriage.

He could have a glimpse, he could have some type of imagination of what the future would hold, but he didn't know fully the heartache that it would bring him, that this woman would abandon him, leave him to be a prostitute.

And he's probably beckoning God, please do something, move in my life, give me some type of words of hope and of life, of something that is going to lift me up from this pit of which I find myself in.

And God declares to Hosea, go again.

You see, Hosea is told by the Lord to get up and go get Gomer back.

You see, Gomer has ran away fully immersed into her sinful and idolatrous pursuits.

She's with another man, bound in adultery.

She alone is probably at a place that she never thought she would be.

At the end of chasing the false promises of lesser lovers, she finds herself captive and enslaved by another man.

You see, this is how God loves us.

This is how God loves us.

He loves you like a prostitute named Gomer.

He loves you.

He loves you.

We have to see ourselves honestly in this narrative.

But we have to strive to see God honestly as well, because at the crux of our striving, we'll be able to truly see the gospel.

When we approach uh Hosea chapter 3, one of the reasons why James Boyce was able to declare this as the greatest chapter in the Bible is because if we press in to see with clarity what is going on and what God is trying to communicate to his people, we will see the beauty of the gospel.

Hosea 3 · chapter mention

We are Gomer.

We give every reason to God to not love us.

Everything in our sinful pursuits, everything in our rebellious actions, everything within our very being would cause God to not love us.

But that's not the story that he tells.

God says, I will place my affections upon you, and there's nothing you can do to stop me.

Paul Washer, a pastor and a missionary, says this of God's love for us.

I have given Christ countless reasons not to love me, and none of them has changed his mind.

Amen.

I have given Christ countless reasons not to love me, and none of them have changed his mind.

It was interesting, I was talking with a young woman this week about marriage, and we were talking about the difference between covenant and compatibility.

You see, in our human terms, we understand marriage through compatibility.

That's what we seek to discover and find and maintain within our marriage.

But any of you've been married long enough, you discover that is pooy.

That is an endless pursuit without real gain.

You see, compatibility actually means nothing because if you've been married long enough, you discover that you flow ebb and flow in and out of compatibility with one another.

You see, that's not the story of the Bible, but we mix love and our understanding of it through compatibility with God's love for us, and we think that at times we will no longer be compatible with God, or there's something that we will do that will make him not want to love us or be with us anymore.

But that's where we fall so drastically short because God's love is not based on compatibility, God's love is based on covenant, and there is nothing you could ever do to earn God's love for you, and there is nothing you could ever do to take it away.

This is what we're seeing in Hosea chapter 3.

Hosea 3 · chapter mention

Hosea, go again and love a woman of adultery.

Go again and love this woman who has abandoned you, who has chased after lesser lovers, who have found herself enslaved as a prostitute, this one who rejected you and left you desolate alone.

Hosea, get up and go get her.

That is Christ for his bride.

That is the beauty of the gospel.

We in our full depravity are Gomer, chasing after lesser lovers who only leave us with empty affections.

And God Himself is Hosea, the one who gets up and he purchases us back out of our enslavement, out of our bondage.

Verses 2 through 3 say this in the summary: the Lord depletes himself for the good of his bride.

The Lord depletes himself for the good of his bride.

Let's paint the scene of what's transpiring here.

Hosea has gone and searched out Gomer's new residence.

And he finds her with another man who the Bible says loves her.

Loves her.

As we're going to discover, that's a very loose statement.

You see, Gomer has pursued the worship of false gods and chased after the empty promises of lesser lovers, and finds herself enslaved to a man that is not her husband.

So Hosea goes to this man who supposedly loves her and he purchases her from him.

Now, what kind of love could this man have truly had for Gomer?

That he's just able to buy her.

Hosea is able to just purchase her back.

And what we see in this narrative is that Hosea bankrupts himself to purchase her.

You see, his money was insufficient.

If we look at this, he says that it was 15 shekels plus a Homer and a lethic.

You see, he didn't have even enough money to be able to buy her with his cash.

His money was insufficient.

And so what does Hosea have to do?

Well, he had to start bartering with his possessions to obtain her.

Not only did he give 15 shekels of silver over, but he also gave over five bushels of grain.

When you take a measure of a Homer and a lethic, what we get is about five bushels of grain, which actually added to about 15 additional shekels of silver in value.

So in total, Hosea pays 30 shekels of silver for Gomer.

So around four months of wages for the ancient time.

So imagine yourself today, this woman who has abandoned you, who has chased after the worship of false gods, has found herself enslaved as a prostitute.

You're going and you can't even fathom to, you can't even scrounge up the money to pay for her.

You start bartering with your own possessions, and in total, four months of your salary gone to buy her back.

You see, Hosea depleted himself to obtain Gomer.

And God has depleted himself to obtain us.

Let's look at Philippians 2, 6 through 8 as it declares this.

Who, speaking of Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself.

By taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Like Hosea, God Himself depleted himself to obtain his bride.

He emptied himself and stayed obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

What we see in the second half of this passage of scripture is that Hosea actually buys her for her ultimate good.

Think about this.

Think about Hosea in purchasing Gomer.

What does he have to gain in this transaction?

He's giving up four months' salary for a woman who has found herself bound in prostitution, not because she got kidnapped and forced against her will into this place.

I do believe that Gomer probably never thought she would be here, but she's there because she started pursuing false gods and the empty promises that they would give her.

And so she abandons him, she leaves him, she's with another man, and she's put on the auction block.

And here comes Hosea saying, I'll buy her.

I'll give everything that I've got to obtain her.

What does he have to gain in this transaction?

What is his striving purpose then, if it is not for her ultimate good?

You see, he banks he bankrupts himself for an adulterous woman.

Hosea has no reason to believe that Gomer won't just turn around and run right back to her old ways.

Wait, not old ways, current ways.

In fact, we even see this concern in Hosea's charge to her.

But here, in the very command, in the very charge that Hosea gives to her, that she would not be with another man, nor continue in her adulterous ways, we actually see how Hosea was purchasing Gomer for her good.

And it's hidden if you don't catch it.

You see, because he actually says, in this transaction, you're not gonna be with another man.

You're not gonna leave me.

You're not gonna go back and play the adulterous games that you used to play.

And then he says this, and so will be with I also.

What Hosea was doing there was saying, Not only will you have no other man, but you won't even have me.

He wasn't buying her so that he could fulfill his sexual needs and desires.

He was even telling her, look at how much I am buying you and purchasing you, freeing you, not for my own good, but for yours alone.

That he himself commits to be absent so that she can heal, so that she can recover, so that she can know the freedom of God.

Verses four through five, we see that the restoration of God's people is progressive.

We see that God isn't promising full restoration at the outset of what all He will accomplish.

But He says it'll be progressive, it'll come in the latter days.

Hosea declares that even this freeing of God's people from this enslavement of false gods is not the fullness of God's goodness for them.

The children of God who would come back home and live in the joy of their father, they would be under the tender care of a sovereign, powerful ruler, and they would ultimately experience the fullness of his goodness, and his glory would be irresistible to them.

So, what's our big idea when we read through this chapter of Hosea?

This I think is how this summarizes it for us.

The Lord's affection for us is relentless.

The Lord's affection for us is relentless.

If you have ever struggled to see the fullness of the gospel, or if you have never seen it as something beautiful to behold, I pray this morning that the Spirit of the Lord would open your eyes to behold it fully and beautifully now.

There is nothing that can keep you from the affection God has for you, not even yourself.

This is something that I love about the doctrines of grace.

As we understand the way that God loves us, the way that God saves us, do you understand that so many times will we read the passage of Scripture that there is nothing that can pluck you from the hand of Christ and we add to the back end of it, but we can ourselves.

Do you think you are so powerful to remove yourself from the covenant everlasting love that God has for you?

You were weak to obtain it, and you are too weak to lose it.

It is in spite of you that God loves you.

There is nothing that can keep you from his affection.

And all of the working of what God is trying to communicate in the parabolic life of Hose and Gomer, he is most working to have us see that all of our salvation and redemption is based upon his relentless love for us.

There is nothing we bring to our redemption, and all glory belongs to him and him alone.

There is nothing.

You want to see yourself again, like we have been uh declaring over and over through this sermon series.

If you want to see yourself, look to Gomer.

That is you.

You do not want God, you run from him, you rebel against his ways, you chase after lesser lovers, you worship false gods, and again and again, God in himself, Christ being the incarnate one who comes to earth, goes again after his church had abandoned him, after his bride had chased after these false gods, he goes again in the form of man and he depletes himself to purchase you.

That's how much God loves you.

Church, see the gospel.

Nothing, nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing.

We think way too highly of ourselves.

We think way too highly of ourselves.

Our story this morning is this that we pursue lesser lovers and become enslaved to their empty affections.

Again, we're Gomer.

This is the story of us all.

We have chased down status, we have chased down relationships, we have chased down things, because we believed on the other side of our pursuit.

Was promised gain.

And all of us in this room have experienced the devastating reality when we get there and our false gods are empty-handed.

All of us.

You've experienced it.

And if you haven't, you gotta live a little.

Come out from under the rock.

Let life kick you in the teeth.

But this is our story.

Right?

This is what God's trying to get us to see.

We're all Gomer.

This is all of us.

We have went after a relationship.

We gave everything that we had for it.

We sacrificed for it.

And at the end, when we thought we would obtain all that we were searching for, there stood a false God with empty hands.

Nothing for us.

Some of you have chased down career.

I was talking to somebody this week again that only 30% of college students actually use their degree.

And you've spent sixty-five, seventy-five thousand dollars to chase down something that was empty-handed on the other side.

Some of us can't stop buying things and filling our homes with them.

When Apple releases a new thing, we have to have it.

And look, I'm preaching to myself.

I love new stuff.

And you know what happens at the other side of it?

Apple's just a false god with empty hands.

Doesn't make me happier, it doesn't make me better.

It doesn't fulfill me because in six months I want something different.

And it's these small, insidious ways, or for some of us, it's these major and grand ways where we pursue lesser lovers, and at the end of our pursuit, we're faced with a false God with empty hands.

Or even worse yet, we discover ourselves in a position where the one who loved us, that's what it said about Gomer's new husband, the one who loved us, will trade us away.

We felt that too.

We felt the pain when we were traded away for something better.

Some of you have poured your life into a company that when it came the right time, they just traded you away for younger, better, smarter.

Some of you poured yourself into a relationship to find your own heart traded away for that of another.

We worship these false gods when all along the true and living God is standing there saying, I love you.

I love you.

Relentlessly, I love you.

Ed Welch, author of Addictions, A Banquet in the Grave, says this about our experience of sin.

Whenever, whatever wins our affections will control our lives.

That's where it all starts.

That's where it all starts, but we can never fathom the places that we'll end up.

You see, it's just the winning of our affections.

And we see that.

A lot of times these things that we are going after are good things.

Not that all of the objects of our pursuits are wicked and evil, but they become so when our heart starts to long for what they promise to give us rather than for who God is and what He has given to us.

You see, it all starts with just a simple winning of our affections, but we could never fathom the places that we would end up in pursuit of it.

See, all of sin is at its root a worship issue.

All of sin is a worship issue.

And this is being demonstrated so clearly in the narrative that we are expositing because we could focus so much on the fact that Gomer is a prostitute, enslaved by a pimp.

Hosea has to get up after being abandoned and deplete himself, bankrupt himself to purchase her back.

We could look at all the actions of what's going on, but if we miss how she got there, it was a worship issue.

She didn't trust God that he would do what he said he would do.

She didn't trust God as a loving husband who would care for her needs.

And so what did she do?

She went to something more tangible that promised greater gain, but at the end was empty-handed, and she gave her worship to Baal.

That's how she got there.

You see, their affections were won by the empty promises of the God Baal, and then it ended up controlling their very lives.

God was proclaiming to Israel that in his power he would establish their affections on himself.

Because his sovereign rule over their lives is for the fullness of their joy.

God is the only being whom our affections should be placed on because his control over our lives is the best of all other options.

Let me say that again.

God alone deserves all of our affections on himself.

Not because he's controlling, not because he's power-hungry, egotistical, not because of any of these reasons that we fear in the depths of our hearts.

God demands all of our affections on himself because it's only placing ourselves under his sovereign rule do we benefit and receive the best possible of all other options.

And the beauty of the gospel for us is this Jesus, our groom, depleted himself to purchase us forever as his bride.

Praise God.

This is the love of which Christ has for us.

Not only would he empty himself of his identity as we read earlier, but Christ himself would even empty himself of his very blood to obtain us.

He depleted himself to purchase us forever.

We are his.

God doesn't reluctantly love you, God relentlessly loves you.

You see, there is nothing that has set him back to make him think different, to make him question, was this worth it?

He demonstrated eternally and fully that to have you was worth it when he poured out his blood on Calvary.

This should free us because we don't have to strive and labor and toil to earn his affections for us.

Because guess what?

You and I know when we lay down at night and rest our heads on our pillows that we fall miserably short.

We know who we are in our hearts, we know the thoughts that we had, we know the actions we did that no one else saw.

We know ourselves, and we know the haunting thought: how could anyone love me?

Stop trying to earn God's love.

Stop fearing that you've lost it.

And enjoy.

Work from the acceptance that he has given you.

See, that's the thing.

When we work to be obedient to God, not for his acceptance, but from his acceptance, what joy it is to be obedient to him.

When you realize how much he loves you, how great his affections are for you, when you realize what Christ has paid to purchase you, to have you, how from before the foundations of the earth, two things happen.

One is that he determined to set his affections on you, and he determined to purchase you through the death of his son.

Before he even spoke to create, God determined in his providential being, he would love you.

Before you drew your first breath, he said, I will love you.

Before you committed your first sin, he said, I will love you.

And in joy, when we know his love, oh, how joy-filled our obedience can be to him.

How joy filled can our obedience be to him?

We can live as free people.

Church, let us find joy.

That our redemption, our hope is not placed on ourselves but on him.

And if that's true for us, if we can believe that and place our faith in that, then this is true also.

That living in freedom from lesser lovers and in full to the eternal pleasures of God, living in freedom from lesser lovers and in full to the eternal pleasures of God.

This is what we can do because of what Christ has done for us.

Galatians 5, 1 says this.

For freedom, Christ set us free.

Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

You see, church, Christ has set us free.

Let us hear this declaration fresh and anew this morning as we seek to understand ourselves as Gomer, as we seek to understand ourselves in the condition of our depravity.

Let us hear fresh and anew this morning, Christ has set you free.

We're freed from the enslavement of former empty infections, our lesser lovers, our empty-handed false gods, and we never have to return to them anymore.

And now, Christian, you're bound to the true and living God, who from within his very self flows rivers of eternal pleasure.

We talked about this a couple weeks, but to have God is to have everything.

Not to have his stuff.

And I was thinking about this with after I preached and was kind of thinking back through all the ways I messed up and mentioned different cartoon characters on accident and so forth.

I misspelled Homer, Hose, oh dang it, Jose and Gomer one time and came out.

Homer, it's like Brangelina.

But um, what uh what I was thinking about is this.

Here's the goofiness with the prosperity gospel.

You ready for this?

This is the goofiness when you really when you really think about it.

When we believe that having stuff is God's blessing, how do we reconcile the reality that the wicked around us are abundant in his things?

How do you reconcile that?

When they live in mansions on hills and their garages are full with exotic vehicles and they have all the clothes and all the bling and all the whatever, how do you reconcile that being blessed and favorable of God is to have stuff when the wicked have more than you could ever imagine?

That's not God's favor, that's not God's blessing.

To have, you know what they don't have?

They don't have him.

That's God's favor.

That's God's blessing.

And when he decides in relationship with us to give us things, we don't hold tightly to them any longer.

Because who cares?

I've got you.

I've got you.

I don't need your stuff.

I have you.

Think about that as children who are lavished with gifts, but they don't have the affection of their father.

Would they not trade all of Christmas for the love of their dad?

The prosperity gospel is a wicked lie.

To have God is to have everything we could ever need.

And we can live as free people.

So, church, let us see how this might truly be the best chapter in the Bible.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for the truth of your gospel.

Thank you for allowing us to see the beauty of Christ through the story of a prostitute named Gomer.

I pray, Lord, that you help us to see the gospel fresh and anew this morning, that we see it as beautiful.

And Father, let us continue to plunge the depths of the beauty of which it holds.

Like a diamond faceted on all sides, just spinning in a ray of light.

Let us never cease to inspect how beautiful and glorious your gospel is.

I pray, Father, that you allow us to be transformed by the Holy Spirit this morning, putting our faith and trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ your Son.

It's His name we pray.

Amen.