"Temporary Repentance”Hosea 6-7: Pastor Daniel Reese

Well, good morning.

I feel like it's been a while since I've been up here, so it's good to be here this morning.

We're going to be in Hosea chapter 6.

Hosea 6 · chapter mention

This morning we are in our sixth week of going through the book of Hosea.

We're going to get the general idea today of two chapters this morning.

So we don't have time to read the whole thing, but I would always encourage you that you go back.

As we're going through the series, as we're not going line by line, that you go ahead and read the entire chapter

so that you can understand and see what we are not able to cover in our time on Sundays.

So being in Hosea chapter 6 and 7 this morning, I'll give you time to...

Hosea 6 · chapter mention

I always forget to look at what page that's on.

It's on page 754 in my Bible. I don't know if that helps you.

Have you ever been caught doing something that you know you shouldn't?

Now, my children are not deprived children.

They have everything they could ever need and then some.

But if you ask a couple of them, if not all four of them, they would make it seem like they are starving

and we don't feed them.

I promise you that we do.

Now, because my children feel like they are so deprived

and because they feel like they are living in a North Korean prison camp at times,

they sometimes feel the need to sneak food into their room.

But what does every kid do with the wrapper?

Do they take it back to the kitchen and throw it in the trash?

No.

Do they want to get rid of the evidence?

No. They stick it under their bed.

They put it behind some sort of piece of furniture.

Never once, ever, have my children asked me for something to eat

and I've given them a rock instead.

It's never happened.

But they sure act like that's what would happen if they were to ask me if they could have something to eat.

Well, eventually we go into the room and are looking for something

and we find all the wrappers that have been stuffed into something.

I mean, they don't even try to get rid of the evidence.

They just leave it there.

So they get caught and one of my children in particular, when they get caught, they just crumble.

They fall into our arms.

They are crying.

They are sobbing.

They are apologizing.

They are telling us they won't do it again.

It's really hard in that moment to be mad at them, at least the first time.

Right? So with that in mind, let's look at the first three verses of chapter 6.

Isaiah writes,

Now, remember last week, Pastor Mark showed us that God was starting to build a case against the Israelites.

They had done so many things wrong.

They didn't show that they were faithful.

They didn't show that they had steadfast love or knowledge.

The first three verses are Israel's response to getting busted.

And it's our response when we get busted as well.

We've all done it, haven't we?

We get convicted of sin.

We make a commitment and we start to give ourselves a little speech.

I'm not going to do this again.

I'm not going to walk in this sin anymore.

I'm going to live my life finally in a way that honors the Lord.

We all do it.

We're going to start reading our Bible.

We're going to start coming to Bible study.

We're going to get up early and pray.

We're going to really change our life this time.

This is what Israel is doing.

God got their attention.

Their response is, you're right.

Let us return to the Lord.

Let's stop looking at other things.

And then they start reciting things that they know to be true about the Lord.

Sometimes he breaks us down so that he can heal us.

He wounds us so that he can lift us back up.

It's like they know.

It's like they know that sometimes in order for there to be healing,

the infection has to be cut out.

God accuses them in the last chapter of having no knowledge.

So the response in verse 3 is, let us press on to know the Lord.

Let's do this thing.

Let's learn some things about him.

This is their mountaintop, youth camp, whatever experience.

They are rededicating their life to the Lord.

They are making some strong commitments to the Lord

because they know that he's going to respond to them.

Now those are important moments.

I'm not knocking mountaintop experiences.

I'm not knocking rededicating your life to the Lord.

Those are good reminders that the Lord is not far from any of us.

It also reminds us that he is a God that responds to us

and isn't some out of touch being that likes to watch us suffer.

The reason that this is their response is because they care about the Lord.

No one is saying they are proud of what they did.

Nobody is saying that they are proud of where they've come

and they are happy that the Lord has matted them.

The reason my children and probably your children feel shame

and want to make it right when they do something wrong

is because they care about us as their parents.

They care about what we think.

They know that they have offended what our standard

and which we want them to live.

Now that isn't part of the thought process when they are doing the deed

but when they see that they've been busted, when they see that they've been caught

they want to make it right.

They don't want to be in trouble anymore.

They want that relationship with us restored.

When was the last time that you made a commitment to the Lord

that you would start taking him seriously,

that you would start living your life in a way that pleases him.

If you haven't felt convicted of your sin in some time

then I'm going to push back against you and say that you are not walking closely with the Lord.

If you've not felt convicted about how you're living your life recently

then you are not walking closely with the Lord.

One thing I know for sure about my relationship with the Lord

is the more I spend time with him,

the more I'm reading his word,

the more I'm seeking after him,

the more that I am convinced that I'm nowhere near

the standard of righteousness without him that I want to be.

The more I feel like I need to confess,

the more I feel like I need to make it right,

I would encourage all of us this morning

to really think about what our response to him would be

if he laid out all the charges that he has against us.

What if he laid that all out in front of you?

What would your response be?

This is how you've messed up.

This is how you've shown to be unfaithful.

This is how you've shown that you don't have love.

This is how you've shown that you don't have any knowledge of me.

You know some facts about me, but you don't know me.

That leads us to God's response, starting in verse 4.

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?

What shall I do with you, O Judah?

Your love is like a morning cloud,

like the dew that goes away early.

Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets,

I have slain them by the words in my mouth,

and my judgment goes forth as the light.

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.

The knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Now as a parent, I understand this all too well.

The reality is that when I think my kids are busted,

I really think that when they're caught doing something,

they are really sincere in their apologies.

They really mean it.

They're really concerned about making it right.

However, they tend to forget that, and they do it again.

They do the same thing again.

Then we get more apologies and more sadness.

Once again, genuine, but it just doesn't seem to stick.

I know this as a parent.

What the passage is saying here is that our response is untrustworthy.

Have you ever said, what am I going to do with you to one of your children?

What am I going to do with you?

This is what God is saying.

Your commitment, your love is like the morning dew.

It's real, it's real, but it doesn't last.

Now that is so true of our hearts.

I think in the moment we really think, we really believe,

we're going to turn things around this time.

We're going to stop being lazy.

We're going to stop wasting so much time on our phone.

We're going to read our Bibles more.

We're going to be more committed to the church,

but the feeling fades, the commitment fades.

Something else comes along to distract us and we move on.

I want us to focus real quick on verse 6 because I think we get action

confused sometimes with devotion.

God tells us he desires steadfast love, not sacrifice.

He desires the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

God is not hoping that you just go and do more stuff.

The Israelites forgot the purpose of the sacrifice.

They forgot the purpose of the burnt offerings.

They weren't just things to do to make them holy in the sight of God.

They were a reminder that everything comes from God.

They were doing these religious things thinking that that is what please God.

And he just said, no, no, no, I want you to know me.

I want you to know me.

I want you to love me.

Because if you truly loved me,

then you wouldn't understand it isn't a sacrifice.

If you truly knew my heart,

these wouldn't just be religious things to do.

They would have purpose.

They would be an act of worship.

I had this room at in college for a little while.

His name was Eric.

I guess his name is Eric.

He and I were best friends for several years.

We did everything together, but then something happened.

And to this day, I'm really not sure what it was.

For the last year of college, we were living in the same house,

but I never saw him.

He would lock himself in the room.

He would come out for class or he'd come out for work.

And that was about it.

The last year of college, that's all we were roommates.

We would talk when we needed to talk,

when we had to get together to pay the rent or pay the utilities,

hey, you owe me this much for the water bill or whatever that was.

But that was about the extent of our conversation for the last year

that we worked together or lived together.

He even, after we graduated, he even packed up everything

while we were gone and left without saying goodbye.

Leaving me and our other roommate to clean everything up.

You know how that goes, right?

To get the house ready to get our deposit back.

Eric functioned as a roommate, but nothing more.

He always paid on time.

He cleaned up after himself, but nothing more.

There was no relationship.

He didn't really know what was going on with me,

nor did I know what was going on with him.

He did the job of a roommate, but there was no relationship.

What God is asking from us, what God is asking from His people

is to be more than just roommates.

Don't just come to church, pay your tithe,

say hi to people on your way in with a smile,

and think that that is what He's after.

If your motivation for coming to church

is because you think it makes you look like a good person,

it gives you a good reputation in the community,

then I'm going to ask you to stop coming

because you're wasting your time.

If that's what your motivation is,

is I'm going to go to church on Sunday

because that'll put me in the right spot with God,

then you're wasting your time.

God says, I want you to know me.

I want you to be faithful to me.

If reading your Bible is a sacrifice

and you don't really care of who God is,

then don't read it.

Stop reading it because the reality is

is that once you understand Him, once you love Him,

then reading your Bible is a joy.

Coming to church is a joy.

He is after far more than religious platitudes.

So this morning I hope you understand

that we have proven to be untrustworthy.

But I also hope you understand

that at least God knows that our response is consistent.

It says in chapter 7 verse 1,

when I would heal Israel,

the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed

and the evil deeds of Samaria,

for they deal falsely.

The thief breaks in and the bandits raid outside.

So God is acknowledging in that passage

that when He would heal them,

they would mess up again.

When I would give them a clean slate,

they would dirty it up again.

The Israelites would overcome

overwhelming armies

with the help of the Lord.

They would have these big, massive victories

with the help of the Lord.

But they would go back to worshiping false idols.

They would then go back to just going through the motions

and their devotion to the Lord would wane

and they ended up being conquered by other armies down the road.

The same story being said about Israel

is the same story for humanity since.

We get a fresh start, we mess it up.

We make bad decisions.

We chase things that we think are going to make us happy.

We put other things before the Lord.

And then we begin to wonder why He seems distant from us.

We begin to wonder why sin seems to be overtaking my life.

We come to church or camp or a conference

and it reinvigorates our passion for the Lord

and we do really, really, really well for a season.

But then again, our consistent nature is to mess it up again.

How many times has sin wrecked your life?

Now, for me, it doesn't wreck it nearly as badly as it used to.

But it will mess up my life enough at times

where my wife and I don't get along for a few days

where there's no communication

because I'm handling a situation incorrectly.

There have been times that there have been barriers

between me and my children

because sometimes I forget that they're children

and I expect them to act like adults.

The sin in my life has caused many broken relationships

because I just didn't handle the situation correctly.

I've been given a clean slate by the Lord

and at times instead of doing what He requires of me,

I choose my own path.

I choose my own desires. I choose my own needs.

Consistently, I fall short.

And at times God has to use some drastic measures

to get my attention.

Sometimes the consequences of my sin

are God just letting me go down the path

that I've chosen knowing that it's going to end badly for me.

This is what is about to happen to Israel

as we keep reading.

There's an old saying, many of you know it.

You've made your bed, now you've got to lie in it.

I don't know what that means

because if I make my bed, I'm not allowed...

Sina makes my bed.

If Sina makes the bed, I'm not allowed to lie on it.

That makes no sense to me.

But it means you've made a decision

and now you have to live with the consequences of that decision.

There is justice in that saying.

For generations, God had given the Israelites

opportunities to return, opportunities to remain faithful,

but each time they messed it up.

And now here we are in Hosea

and we're reading about some of those consequences.

There was a movie that came out in 2009

called Up.

You seen it?

It's about an old man who loses his wife

and he refuses to sell his house

while development is going all around him.

He ends up attaching...

This is not a true story, right?

But, just so you know, he ends up attaching

a whole bunch of helium balloons to his house

and just flying it out of there.

Not knowing that there's a little boy on his porch

before he does this.

They end up landing in South America.

And once they get to South America,

they come across this golden retriever named Doug.

Now, I can relate to Doug.

He's distracted easily by what's going on around him.

He will be in the middle of a conversation

and then lose all focus completely

because he thinks he saw a squirrel.

Our response to God's judgment a lot of times is like Doug.

In verse 11, chapter 7, it says,

Ephraim is like a dove,

silly and without sense, calling to Egypt,

going to Assyria.

It then says in verse 16,

they return but not upward.

How many times did God prove himself faithful

and capable

and when things got hard,

they wished they were back in Egypt.

They're walking with the Lord,

he just parted the red seed.

We're just tore apart the seed, as we just sang, right?

They cross on dry land, God has proven himself faithful.

He's proven himself capable.

And then they look around, they walk around for a few days

and they're like, there's no McDonald's around here.

There's no Chick-fil-A's around here.

I'm hungry.

We had plenty of food back in Egypt.

They get distracted by their circumstances.

God calls his people silly and without sense.

He says they return but not upward.

That simply means they come back to doing religious things

but not because of who I am

but because that is something they know to do.

They know how to go through the motions.

It says later that when we do that,

we are like a treacherous bow,

meaning we are useless.

A crooked bow doesn't shoot straight.

It makes it harder to hit the target.

Now, you might get in the general vicinity

but you're probably not going to hit the target.

To return upward means to be aware that everything you have is God's.

Everything.

We use the breath that He gives us

to sing praises and say prayers

but we also use that same breath

to say something critical about someone else.

Every dollar that you have is from God.

You might say, no, I earned it.

I'm one of the few people in my field

that can accomplish what I do.

Now, that might be true.

It might be true and it probably is true

but it was God who knitted you together

and gave you the skills necessary to make a living.

When we don't return upward,

we are relying on our own abilities and knowledge

and those things are like a crooked bow.

You begin to think things like giving a check

is helping God out.

You begin to think that serving the church is an obligation.

You begin to think that going on mission is helping God out

because if you don't do it, then who is?

The reality is that when we return upward,

we realize we aren't generous enough.

We realize that serving the church is a joy

and hopes that somebody will come to know the Lord.

We go on mission because we get the opportunity

to bless someone as much as the Lord has blessed us.

Too many people live their lives by doing things

so that they can be saved, so that they can be redeemed

instead of doing things because we are redeemed.

You don't work for your redemption.

You work because you have redemption.

Do you realize what is going on in this place today?

Do you understand what's going on in this place today?

We get the opportunity, not the chore,

not the duty, but the opportunity to gather in this place

and worship that God of everything.

It's not an obligation.

You get to sit next to the family that God has given you

and worship Him for it.

You get to watch children run out of here

and go learn about the good news of Jesus.

We get to stay in here and hear His Word and worship Him for it.

We get to read the words of God.

We get to hear His heart.

We get to understand His ways.

We get to know Him through this book.

We don't have to.

We get to.

We get to bow our knees in reverence to the Creator

and sustainer of life.

We get to bow our knees in reverence to the Perfecter of our faith.

But so many of us don't have that mindset.

We return to the Lord time and time and time again,

but we fail to surrender completely to Him.

We get distracted.

Have you ever been studying your Bible?

Having a time of prayer

and everything on your to-do list starts to go through your head?

You haven't thought about it all day.

But as soon as you sit down to spend time with the Lord,

squirrel, right?

We have to fight against that temptation.

That's the enemy at work in your life.

Have you ever been compelled to share your story of redemption with someone?

To tell them the good news of Jesus.

And you're about to open your mouth.

And then all of a sudden you begin to think about the rejection that might occur.

They might think I'm an idiot.

They might ask me a question I don't know the answer to.

And we begin to think about those things.

We're distracted and we fail to walk in obedience to the Lord.

Or you've been called by God to give some money away to someone in need.

To help some ministry out.

But then you start worrying about paying your own bills.

You start worrying about, well, what if this comes up?

If I give this money away, I'm not going to have it ready.

If God calls you to something,

our focus has to remain on Him.

It is having the mindset of I'd rather be rejected by this individual

than failing to follow the Lord's command.

I would rather spend 20 to 30 minutes focused on my relationship with the Lord

than anything else.

Because I know that if I do that, the rest of my day will go better.

The rest of my to-do list will go better.

It is trusting Him with our finances.

Because if He calls me to give away a bunch of cash,

I'm going to trust that He's going to continue to provide in spite of it.

We have to return upward.

Here's what I need you to know.

Even though we respond when we're busted,

and our responses are consistently untrustworthy.

God's response is not condemnation. His response is a clean slate.

Did you catch that little Messianic prophecy in verse 2, chapter 6?

After two days, He will revive us.

And on the third day, He will raise us up that we may live before Him.

In the midst of all of our unfaithfulness,

God is still responding in love.

He hasn't stopped pursuing us.

The people in Hosea's time didn't know it yet to the extent that we do now.

But even in the midst of their rebellion,

God was planning on sending His Son to be the final sacrifice.

Our inadequacies, our failures,

are continuously met with love and grace.

Right now, we're still being revived.

We're still being revived.

But there is a day coming that He will raise us up,

not because of who we are, not because of what we've done,

but because that is His nature.

That's who He is.

I mean, I would have already given up on me by now.

But the Lord's love is never ending.

When we are untrustworthy, He is faithful.

When we consistently mess up, He meets us with grace.

When we get distracted by shiny things,

and we forget about God and what He's been speaking,

He remains steady.

So let's respond,

knowing that we're going to mess up again.

Let's respond upward,

realizing and acknowledging that every good and perfect gift

comes down from the Father of Lights.

These are holy moments.

These are holy moments to remind us

and help us get back in tune with the Father's voice.

Jesus says that His sheep know His voice.

The question that becomes, are you listening for it?

You know when He's speaking to you.

Are you walking in obedience?

How are you going to respond?

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you will hear my voice.

I pray that our ears are attentive to you.

I pray that you will hear our cries for mercy.

God, if you kept record of sins,

who could stand?

But with you there's forgiveness,

so that we can serve you and love you and follow you.

So Father, we wait for you?

Each and every one of us are waiting for you?

Father, our hope is in your word.

I pray that we will hear it.

And so God, right now we wait for you.

More than watchmen wait for the morning,

we wait for you to speak.

And so Father, our hope is in you.

Because your love is unfaithful.

And in Jesus we have redemption.

And so Father, I pray for this time.

I pray for obedience and humility to fall on this room.

I pray for your spirit to speak to our hearts.

I pray God that our ears and our hearts will be in tune

with how you were speaking to us.

Help us not just go through the motions.

Help us return upward.

Shalom and praise.