"A Godly Conclusion" Hosea 14: Pastor Daniel Reese

If you have your Bibles, Hosea 14.

Hosea 14.

14 weeks ago we began a journey, right,

through the book of Hosea,

and today we're going to wrap this book up.

Through 13 chapters, we have seen God

try to get the attention of his people.

He has reminded them of who he is.

He has reminded them of what he has done.

He has told them how far they have gotten from him.

Now, I really don't think that the people of Israel

were just blatantly disregarding the Lord.

But their heart was just not in the right place.

They couldn't see their condition.

They just kept going through the motions

of living their life, and God was just an afterthought.

They had the tendency, just as we have the tendency

to get comfortable with our lives,

and before you know it, we've drifted farther

than we want to be.

When I was reading this chapter this week,

I kept thinking about the ocean.

Now, I've been in the ocean many times,

but most recently in South Carolina

a couple years ago with my family.

One particular day, Sina and I are sitting on Myrtle Beach,

and we're sitting in our beach chairs as lazy people do,

and we're just sitting there enjoying the view

and enjoying watching our kids have a good time.

They're just playing in the water, riding their boogie boards

or whatever they were doing, just having a really good time.

Sina and I would get to talking and look up,

and next thing you know, our kids are like 100 yards

down the beach, and so we have to get our rear ends up

out of the beach chair, walk down there,

tell them to get back to where we can see them.

Happened several times, I was beginning to get frustrated

because my kids know they have to stay where we can see them.

Well, then I get in the water, and I'm playing with the kids,

and we're getting hit by waves,

and we're having a great old time.

I look up, and it's me that's 100 yards away

from where the beach chairs are.

You don't realize in the midst of all the fun

that the current is taking you away

from where you are supposed to be,

and that's how I view the Israelites.

God was trying to get their attention,

he was sending the prophets, he was sending messages,

but they had been too busy having a good time

to realize how far they've actually drifted.

I mean, they're still going to the temple,

they're still saying their prayers,

they're still offering the sacrifices,

but their attention is not on the Lord,

their attention is on the busyness of life,

and here is Hosea saying, we get back to the beach chairs.

You gotta get back, but the people are not listening.

They're too focused on what they have going on

to even realize that they are drifting away

from where they are safe.

And so let's read chapter 14 this morning

and see what God's response is.

We'll read the first three verses real quick.

It says, return, oh Israel to the Lord your God,

for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Take with you words and return to the Lord,

say to him, take away all iniquity,

accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls

the vows of our lips.

Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride on horses,

and we will say no more, our God,

to the work of your hands, in you the orphan,

orphan finds mercy.

So here God in this passage is giving us

an invitation to return.

The thing about returning is you have to realize

that you've left.

You have to be aware that you've left.

For them they had to come to the realization

that their sin had caused them to drift significantly

from the Lord.

They had to realize that the hopes that they had in armies,

the hopes that they had in what they could accumulate,

the hopes that they had in their own abilities

were not going to save them.

God was not something they could make,

but they tried anyway.

God had become what they could do.

God had become what they could build.

God had become what they could accumulate.

Idolatry is like the ocean and the currents.

It can be fun for a season,

but it is going to take you far away

from where you wanna be.

Or it can take you under, and it can take your life.

It says in you the orphan finds mercy.

Now what do orphans have?

Nothing usually except the hope

that one day someone will love them.

They don't have a home.

They don't have a family.

For a lot of them their whole identity

can be written on a three by five note card.

But it is them that find mercy.

I have some neighbors where we live for the most,

who for the most part are some really pretty nice people.

We get along just fine.

But they are as we are speaking living out,

Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

They find their identity and what they have.

And when they get more stuff,

they just build another barn, a bigger barn.

They are in the process right now

of moving their treasures from one barn to another barn

that they literally just had built.

They are not seeking mercy from the Lord

because in their mind they don't need Him.

Look at what they're able to build.

Look at what they have.

Look at what they've accumulated.

Look at how hard they work.

So instead they look at themselves

as the givers of mercy.

We get to hear about the people that they help out.

We get to hear about how fortunate we are

that we get to live around them.

Now I wouldn't say they're anti-God,

but they don't see themselves in need of Him either.

So when the invitation comes to return,

they don't think it's for them

because they don't realize their condition.

They don't realize how far they've drifted away from Him.

They don't understand their need

because everything they have, they've earned it.

So real quick, let's stop talking about the Israelites

and let's stop talking about my neighbors.

If an invitation to return comes to you from the Lord,

do you view yourself as having drifted away

or do you think there's no need to return

because I haven't left?

Now maybe you are in a season of life

and maybe you're in a season when you're in your walk

with the Lord where you're just clinging to the Father

and you know that this invitation isn't for you.

You are walking and step with Him

and He has never felt closer.

Now I've been there and that's a great place to be,

but maybe the invitation comes

and it helps you realize some things about yourself.

Potentially you have been coming to church for weeks

or months or decades

and you're just going through the motions.

You come in with a smile on your face, you greet people.

You come and you sit in your seats

as long as nobody's taking it,

but if somebody's taking it, that's an issue, right?

And you stand up when we sing songs together

and then you sit down and you listen to somebody

like me talk to you for 30 minutes

and then we'll be done

and you'll put your check in the box

and you'll be out of here,

we'll do it again next week.

Meanwhile, you go to work or you go to school,

you're stressed out because of some project

you are working on,

you lose your cool a couple of times

because let's face it, they deserved it.

You get home to your family,

maybe you sit around the table for dinner,

maybe you're hauling your kids to wherever they need to go,

maybe you have to go to practice or whatever it is,

and you go to bed and you do it again the next day.

Then you start the cycle all over again on Sunday.

Your life has no purpose, your life has no meaning.

You earn a check or you get some A's

and that is all the fulfillment that you have.

That is all that you are striving for

just to make it to another day,

just to make it to the weekend so that I can relax.

Too many people work for the weekend.

There's a song about that.

Now this is the problem with America.

We aren't desperate enough because we are too comfortable.

What you risk death to come here

and worship the Lord with other believers?

Because a few hours ago, there were believers

in the Middle East, there were believers in China

that were willing to do just that.

They understand their need for mercy far more than we do.

Now, maybe we are far more like the Israelites than we want to be.

And maybe this invitation is for us to return to the Lord.

Let's keep reading verse four.

I will heal their apostasy.

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

I will be like a dew to Israel.

He shall blossom like the lily.

He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon.

His shoots shall spread out.

His beauty shall be like the olive.

And his fragrance like Lebanon.

They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow.

They shall flourish like the grain.

They shall blossom like the vine.

Their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

So the invitation goes out.

It's out there.

We realize how far we've gone.

We realize how far we've drifted.

And this is what we get if we return.

God is promising restoration.

If you are fortunate enough to understand your condition

and you return to the Lord, He promises you restoration.

What I love about this passage is if you understand,

if you can grasp just how far Israel has gone away from the Lord,

if you can understand that, which hopefully by now you do,

God is still promising forgiveness.

He is still promising them healing.

What that means, what that means to us

is that if you are still breathing,

you have time to return and receive His forgiveness

and receive His grace.

Now during this time in the Scripture, in history,

they don't have much time left because the Assyrian army is

about to come in and slaughter them.

But before that happens, there is an invitation

to each and every one of them to return and be restored.

Now only God can take what's on the brink of death

and turn it into something that flourishes.

I've heard so many times, countless times,

throughout my ministry.

I am too far gone.

I've messed up too many times.

It's too late to make any sort of change to my life.

If you are breathing, it's not too late.

The promise of restoration is being offered.

Now my wife, Sina, likes to find things on Marketplace.

I actually had to ban her from it for a while

because it was just getting ridiculous.

She is the type of person that doesn't bragg

about the stuff that she has.

She brags about the deal that she got on.

So if you were to compliment her later

on whatever she's wearing, she would say, thank you.

I got it on sale.

Like that's how she functions.

But when we moved here, she gets on Marketplace

and she finds this table on Marketplace

that was about to get thrown out.

And so she brought it home and she spent day sanding it down.

She tried different stains on it.

She worked on it a little bit to tighten some things up.

And now that table sits in my kitchen.

She took the chairs and she reupholstered them.

One was missing a spindle, so she found one.

She found a drumstick laying around in the drum cage.

Just kidding, not the drumstick.

But she found a drumstick.

She takes it home and replaced it.

Now each of us has a table or a chair to sit around the table.

What was going to be trash now has purpose again.

Every morning we sit down at that table

before the kids go to school and we pray together.

We spend some time in the Bible several nights a week.

We'll gather around that table and we'll have dinner together

and enjoy each other.

I am grateful for that table.

I'm grateful for the work that went into restoring it.

Now many of us have been restored.

We realized our position.

We realized our condition.

And we accepted the invitation to return.

But I have a feeling there are many who

feel like they don't have any purpose.

And God is just waiting to throw you out with the trash.

That's not who he is.

He created you and was willing to do whatever it

took to restore you.

As much grief and heartache that Israel has caused God,

his love is still being extended.

He says, I will love them freely.

Once they are under my care, they will blossom.

Once they are under my care, they're going to flourish.

Have you ever known someone who was just

in a really bad situation?

Maybe they were living in a home that had abuse in it.

Maybe they were working a job that just stressed them out

and was sucking the life out of them.

They had a heartbeat, but they didn't have any life in their eyes.

You know those people?

And then something happens.

They get a new job.

They get a new environment.

And all of a sudden, the life comes back into them.

All of a sudden, they're a whole new person.

It's like taking a plant that's in bad soil

and putting it in good soil, and it doubles in size quickly.

It starts blooming like it's never done before.

This is what is being offered to us.

You might be alive right now, but what

is being offered here is not existence.

What's being offered here is life.

But that leads us to the next verse, verse 8.

Oh, Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?

It is I who answer and look after you.

I am like an evergreen cypress.

From me comes your fruit.

So God is asking a rhetorical question here in verse 8.

What have I to do with idols?

Everything you have is because of me.

It's like God is giving them this visual.

He's painting this picture of you can choose the idols,

or you can recognize that everything in your life that

is good has come from me.

If you want restoration, you have to leave the idols,

because I want nothing to do with them.

And so right now, verse 8, this is a turning point for Israel.

And the turning point is repentance.

You can continue down the same path, or you can repent.

You can keep doing what you're doing.

You can keep living your life.

You can keep worshiping things that are not of me,

or you can return to the source of life.

There's this book by Francine Rivers called

Redeeming Love.

They made a movie about it a couple years ago.

I recommend that you read it, or recommend that you watch it.

Probably not watch it with your kids.

But throughout that story, it's based on the book of Hosea.

And throughout that story, Angel, who

is a reference to Gomorrah, is a whore.

And Michael sees her, and he determines in his heart

that he's going to marry her.

It takes some time, it takes some persistence,

it takes a lot of effort, but he gets the girl.

Only for her to continually run back to what she knows.

She tries to make it on her own, but every step

leads to heartbreak.

Every decision leads to more pain.

She never understood how good she had it at home with Michael.

She never understood how much she was loved and cared for.

And then finally, it gets to the point where Michael just

stopped chasing her, and he let her go.

His door was still open, but he wasn't

going to force her to stay.

And so she had to come to that decision on her own.

She had to try everything she thought

would bring her life before she finally comes

to the point of wanting to return.

That's the story of Israel.

That's the story of us.

They were doing anything and everything

they could to find purpose.

They were chasing anything they could to find meaning.

But failing to remember how good they

had it when they were walking closely with the Lord.

This is a turning point for the nation of Israel.

This is not a crossroads.

Repentance is not a choice between this road or that road.

Repentance is stopping what you are doing,

recognizing the hurt that it's caused,

recognizing the grief that it's caused,

and turning around and walking in the complete opposite

direction.

When you repent, there is a recognition.

There is a remorse over what has been done.

And God is saying here, you can keep going down

that path towards idols, but I'm not going with you

because I want nothing to do with it.

Maybe today is a turning point for you.

Maybe today it's time to put some things on the altar

and return to the Lord.

Maybe it is time to walk in obedience,

even though it's scary, even though you

don't have all the answers of what it's going to look like.

Maybe it's time to come to your senses

and realize that you are on a path of destruction, which

leads us to the last verse, verse 9.

This is the last verse of this book.

Whoever is wise, let him understand these things.

Whoever is discerning, let him know them.

For the ways of the Lord are right,

and the upright walk in them, but transgressors

stumble in them.

I mean, just the way this is worded

tells me that not everyone is going to get it.

Not everyone's going to get it.

Whoever is wise, whoever is discerning.

Now, we know that Israel was not wise or discerning

because it's going to end badly for them.

But you don't have to follow their example.

The choice is yours.

Now, to me, intellectually, this sounds like a no-brainer.

Return to the Lord.

But intellect doesn't always translate to wisdom, does it?

Many years ago, as a pastor, and people would come up to me,

come to my office, or come to the church,

or reach out to me when they had certain issues.

I mean, it still happens today.

Marriage issues, personal issues, whatever, they would come.

And intellectually, I was like, yeah, this is good for them.

It's important to talk some things out.

It's important to get advice.

It's important to work through problems.

They needed somebody to walk with them through these issues.

They needed counseling.

I knew that was a good step.

But when I started having marital issues,

I didn't have any wisdom.

Because even though I knew we should go see someone,

even though I knew we should be talking these things out,

I refused.

Because I can handle it.

I can do it myself.

And so my marriage suffered because I

was too full of pride to understand that we needed help.

I'm not that way anymore because I

have seen what godly wisdom brings to my life.

I've seen the value in that.

So you might be sitting here thinking, OK,

I'm going to repent and return.

Intellectually, I'm going to repent and return.

But wisdom is understanding that in order to return,

it's going to cost you something.

You are going to have to give something else up

because idolatry cannot return with you.

Idolatry is anything that robs you,

that robs your affections of God.

Are you going to trust him with all your money

that you've worked so hard to obtain?

Are you going to trust him with that?

What if he calls you to give a bunch of it away?

Are you going to walk in obedience when he calls you

to something?

Or are you going to hold on to your pride

because you care so much about what people think of you?

Are you going to trust him with your children?

Or do you think you're the only one that can watch over them

and you're the only one that can care for them?

What are you holding on to with the clenched fist

that you need to let go of, that you need to release?

I had a heart check myself the other night.

See, and I both did.

We're laying in bed.

My daughter, who's 14, drops this bomb on us

by telling us that when she gets a little older,

she's going to move overseas.

What?

My mind started racing.

What about all the things that could go wrong?

What if I can't talk to her?

What if something happens and I can't get to her?

And the Lord just gently reminded me,

do you trust me with her?

I'm not going to let my children become an idol.

I'm going to trust the Lord who gave them to me.

Back in South Carolina, I was in the ocean one day,

and I decided that I'm going to stay in our area.

I'm going to stay in this area right in front of the beach

chairs.

And I'm not going to drift anymore.

And so here's what I realized.

If I kept my eyes on Sina, if I kept my eyes in her direction,

I could stay there.

I was having to work for it, but I could stay there.

It wasn't always easy, but I could do it.

Whenever I took my eyes off of her

and started looking at the water or started

looking at the people around me, I drifted.

To stay with her was difficult.

I was constantly having to fight the current.

I was constantly getting hit by kids on boogie boards.

It wasn't easy.

But in that moment, everything's always a sermon, right?

In that moment, I was thinking about the Christian walk

with God.

It's not easy.

I had to work to stay with Sina.

It didn't just happen.

You are not going to wake up one day,

walking closely with the Lord when you haven't

kept your eyes on Him.

You are going to drift.

And for some of us, we're going to drift a long ways off.

If we don't keep our eyes focused on Him every single day

and fight through the current of temptations,

fight through the boogie boards of idolatry,

then we are going to drift.

We're going to drift so far that we can't even

see Him at all.

And then you're going to feel like, what's the point?

It's too hard to get back to Him.

It's going to take too much work, too much effort

to fight that current.

When I finally just got exhausted and I ended up just

relaxing, I ended up a long ways off from Sina,

I would just finally give up and let the waves take me

into the shore.

And then I'd get out and I'd walk on dry land back to her.

And that's grace.

You don't have to fight the currents anymore.

Just let the waves take you in and return.

But so many of us take the hard way, don't we?

I grew up legalistic, Baptist.

Some of you all know what that means.

It's like, nope, I'm going to fight the current.

I'm going to do, do, do, do, do.

I'm going to do a whole bunch of good deeds for other people

because I have to earn it.

The Bible says that His mercies are new every single

morning.

So if you've drifted and you're a long ways off,

it's OK because you're still breathing.

You're still breathing.

Let the waves of His grace take you to shore

so that you can return.

You don't have to do anything else except repent.

Now, this book, Hosea, has been hard for me,

but it's been revealing.

Revealing to me that even in the midst of all my sin,

even in the midst of all my shortcomings,

God is still offering His love and forgiveness to me.

His mercies are new every morning.

He's always providing a way back to Him.

I hope that as we've gone through this book,

that you have seen that even though we are Gomer,

we have a faithful God who never leaves us.

And so the call to return is thrown out there.

The offer of restoration is put out there.

But you have a choice, right?

You have a turning point to make.

And so as the worship team comes and as we pray and as we

sing, I'm just going to ask the Spirit,

do what the Spirit does.

And so maybe you'll just stop for a second

and be sensitive to what He's telling you.

Maybe today is the turning point.

Maybe today, you can mark it on the calendar.

August 27, 2023 is the day I turned around.

It was the day He began to restore me.

And now I have new purpose.

And now I have new meaning.

So I'm going to pray for us.

I'm going to ask you to respond however the Lord leads.

And we'll sing.

Father God, I pray.

I pray that your spirit will fill this place.

I pray that your voice be heard louder

than anything else around us.

I pray that you will free us from distraction.

Father, help us hear the call to return.

Help us understand our condition and understand

how far we have drifted.

And so Father, I pray that you will send your spirit

into this room, that it will feel every inch

and crevice of this place, that there will be no doubt

that you are ministering to us and speaking to us.

And so God, I pray that you will understand

how far we have drifted.

And so God, we just ask you to work and move.

We ask all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.