Sanctuary

Reclaiming the Truth

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” Hosea 3.1-2

Redeeming the Time

If you didn’t know the rest of this story you might assume at this point Hosea refuses, or at least complains. You know the rest of the story. Hosea doesn’t refuse, he doesn’t even complain. He somehow just believes. He believes God. He doesn’t just believe in God. He believes God. SO he goes to “show love to his wife again, those she is loved by another man and is an adulteress.” The courage to be obedient here is miraculous. Notice, Gomer is not just with another man, Gomer is “loved by another man.” And yet Hosea goes to find her and bring her home.

It’s not love if it can’t be refused. We are free to refuse or receive the love of God. Every day, in every moment, we have the invitation to live into God’s unimaginably good love or refuse it for the love of another, or maybe worse yet, the love of self.

It would be wrong for us to skip over the other implication in these verses. The implication that stares us in the face and makes our heart skip a beat. The one that says to you, “Go show your love again….”

Go show your love again.

Reflection

• How has God “shown His love again” to you most recently?
• Describe the last time you refused His love. What was the outcome?
• To whom might God be calling you to show your love again, His love again?

Resting in His Redemption 

Our God is patient. He is kind. He is loving. His love will prevail in our life. Rest and receive this prayer from A.W. Tozer:

“Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide them from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell without a rival. Then shall Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need for the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Reclaiming the Truth

“Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means ‘not loved’), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them…After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. Then the Lord said, ‘Call him Lo-Ammi (which means ‘not my people’), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.’” Hosea 1.6, 8-9

Redeeming the Time

Hosea was a prophet to the Northern Kingdom. In his day, Israel was experiencing a season of material prosperity, political stability and religious formalism and apostasy. When Hosea shows up with God’s message of repentance, Hosea knows it’s a message his contemporaries don’t want to hear.

God speaks with dramatic conviction through Hosea. His call for radical repentance may sound harsh at first, but just as we suffer when our love ones hurt, so God too suffers when His people are unfaithful to Him. Yet, God cannot condone sin. God will never cease to love His own, and consequently, He seeks to win back those who have forsaken Him.

The names God chooses in chapter 1, He’ll redeem in chapter 2 (see below). Names are important to God. They are symbolic in many ways. As are our names.

When God speaks to His Son, He chooses the name ‘Beloved.’ God says, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3.17.

Through Christ, we too become the beloved. We too, you too are the beloved one of God.

Katie DiCamillo writes, “Nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.” Speak the name ‘beloved’ today. Receive the name ‘beloved’ today.

Reflection

• When God calls you by name, what name does He use?
• When He speaks to you, what does His voice sound like?
• Describe how it feels to have someone you love call your name.
• Whose name might you call out today in an act of blessing?

Resting in His Redemption 

Because our God is a God of redemption, He comes specifically for those who are called, unloved, and unnamed. A few verses later God speaks these powerful words of identity. It’s a statement of identity for the unknown, and it’s for you. Rest in His redemption today. Rest and Receive.

“In that day I will respond,”
    

declares the Lord—


“I will respond to the skies,
    

and they will respond to the earth;


and the earth will respond to the grain,
    

the new wine and the olive oil,
    

and they will respond to Jezreel.
 

I will plant her for myself in the land;
    

I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’


I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’;
   

and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”

Hosea 2.21-23

Reclaiming the Truth

^“When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, ‘Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.’ So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” Hosea 1.2-3

Redeeming the Time

If the story ended there, it would be a blockbuster movie. The grand story of redemption – a prophet – the one who speaks for God to His people goes and marries a prostitute. A better copy of the storyline might use the original translation, “He shows love to her.” Hosea “shows love” to Gomer a promiscuous woman.

If this is where the story ended everybody would celebrate. But this isn’t where it ends. This is just the beginning.

Know this. This beginning is enough. His beginning, your beginning, this is enough. “He has shown love to you.” He has shown love to you, He is showing love to you, and He will show love to you. And just as Gomer at times refuses the love of Hosea so you too may refuse. You too may wander. You too may wonder. And He too will continue to love.

Reflection

• Describe a time when you resisted His pursuit.
• Describe a time when you fully received His pursuit.
• How do you see God showing love to you right now?

Resting in His Redemption 

To the church at Philippi Paul writes, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1.6.

A few verses later, Paul prays a beautiful prayer. It’s for the Philippians, it’s for the Gomer’s, and it’s for you. Rest in His redemption today. Rest and Receive.

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.” Philippians 1.9-11

Reclaiming the Truth

“The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.’

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, ‘You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.’

For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.”

Redeeming the Time

Marriage is created by God, ordained by God and sacred to God. It’s the relationship that He chooses to use as a picture of how He relates to His people. We are His bride. He is our bridegroom.

In a traditional wedding ceremony, a bride walks down an aisle, arm in arm with her father. The groom stands smiling, nervous, his best friends by his side. Vows are taken, rings are exchanged tears and smiles abound. In these moments, the mystery becomes realized, “the two become one flesh.”

There is perhaps no greater tragedy than when the marriage covenant is violated.

The message this morning at Sanctuary follows the story of Hosea and Gomer. The story is a picture of God’s relationship to Israel, and prophetically it’s a picture of His relationship to us. The theme of this morning’s message is not about marriage, but rather redemption. God’s relentless pursuit to redeem you, His bride, His child. As you listen to the message and reflect on God’s Word, receive His prevailing love in your life.

Reflection

• What does this text show me about the loveliness of God? 

• What is it about God in this text that calls for my love for him? 

• What does this text show me about people and about what love requires of me on their behalf? 

• As one who has been shown mercy and love from God, what empowerment from him do I need to overcome my obstacles to love? 

• What about the love of God in Jesus gives me hope and provision for my own lovelessness?

• What does this text show me about people and about what love requires of me on their behalf? 

• What does it look like to rest and receive in His redemptive love today?

Resting in His Redemption

Write a prayer of thanksgiving in response to His redemptive love.