Matt's Messages - God's Redeeming Love

“God’s Redeeming Love”
June 11, 2006
Hosea 3:1-5

I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to the prophecy of Hosea chapter 3 this morning. The prophecy of Hosea, chapter 3. You can find Hosea chapter 3 on Pew Bible Page #890. Pew Bible Page #890. Hosea chapter 3. Just 5 verses this morning. Hosea chapter 3.

For two weeks now we have been studying together God’s message to Israel through the prophet Hosea and his very unhappy family.

God called Hosea to marry a woman that he knew in advance was going to be unfaithful, adulterous, and promiscuous. Her name was Gomer. How would you like that assignment?

And Hosea was to marry this adulterous woman as a prophetic press-release to the nation of Israel. Israel had become adulterous by going after idols. She had played the harlot with the Baals. And the LORD will not stand for it.

Gomer had three children that Hosea named to more fully explain what God was going to do.

Jezreel - God Scatters in judgment. It’s coming.
Lo-Ruhamah - Not Loved. No pity, no more compassion for Israel.
And Lo-Ammi - Not My People. Israel was going to be disowned.

This sad family sent a pictorial message to the nation of Israel that they needed to repent of their spiritually adulterous idolatry or face the judgment of God.

It’s a terrible picture of lives wrecked by sin and God’s justice being brought to bear.

But we’ve also seen something else, haven’t we?

We’ve seen the grace of God.

We’ve seen God promise that judgment and discipline and exile are not the end of the story for Israel. God still has plans for Israel, and they are gracious plans. Plans for her good.

And chapter 3 shows us this in the most astonishing way!

Chapter 3 of Hosea is about “God’s Redeeming Love.”

God is going to call Hosea to do something seemingly crazy again.

He’s going to call Hosea to redeem his wife.

And it will be another astonishing picture of God’s love for His people.

Let’s read it and then pray together.

Hosea three is in the first person. Hosea himself speaks.

[scripture reading, prayer]

How would you like this assignment? V.1

“The LORD said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress.’”

It appears that Gomer was up to her old tricks again.

She had left. Perhaps Hosea had kicked her out. We don’t know.

But we do know that she was on her own and in the arms and clutches of another man.

Can you imagine how that would have felt to Hosea?

He’d probably fallen out of love with Gomer long ago.

He might have been happy that she was gone and out of the picture.

But the LORD was not. He commanded Hosea to go get her back.

“The LORD said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress.’”

Why?

This is another prophetic picture for Israel. “Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

Hosea may have fallen out of love with Gomer, but the LORD had not fallen out love with Israel.

His love was constant, faithful, and persistent.

And Hosea was to get Gomer back to demonstrate what God’s love is like for His people.

#1. GOD’S REDEEMING LOVE IS AMAZINGLY GRACIOUS.

Did Gomer deserve this?

Absolutely not. Her adultery was still in progress. She was living the life of a whore.
It appears that she had worked herself into slavery or at least into bondage of some kind to some other man. Perhaps professional prostitution.

And she had gotten herself into this place by herself.

But it would take Hosea to get her out.

And this was a picture of God’s redeeming love.

Last month, when I told a friend that I was going to preach the book of Hosea, my friend said, “Oh, that poor man! What he went through.” Which is exactly the first response that we are supposed feel when we read this.

But it’s bigger than that. We should actually say, “Oh, that poor God! What He went through!”


Because what Hosea did for Gomer was a picture of what God does for His people. V.1 again.

“Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

That last line is such a killer.

The word “love” appears in this one verse 5 times. Notice the different things that are loved: “The LORD said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.’”

Isn’t that sad?

“Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

These raisin cakes were probably used in sacrificial festivals to the Baal gods. They were probably a tasty little Rice-Crispy Treat with raisins to go along with the pagan worship.

And God says that He loves Israel but they love raisin cakes.

Pitiful.

They don’t have an “appetite for God.” All they have is an appetite for spiritual junk food.

They like mudpies when God wants to offer them the seven course dinner of Himself.

They don’t deserve God’s love. ....

But He loves them anyway!!!!!!

“Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

God loves them anyway!

God’s Redeeming Love is Amazingly Gracious!

Sometimes we get to thinking that God loves us because we are so special.

But God’s love is special because He loves us when we don’t deserve it in the slightest!

Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that astonishing?

It gets better. Hosea obeys. V.2

“So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.”

Imagine what that was like. Buying your wife. How demeaning, how degrading, how disappointing.

And it’s not like she was very expensive.

It seems that this 15 shekels and a homer and a lethek of barley was about half of the going rate for a female slave.

Gomer was on sale for half price.

That shows the depth to which she had fallen. How “worthless” she had become.

This is where she had sunk to. He shouldn’t have had to buy her in the first place, and here she was only worth half price!

Is Hosea foolish? Is he out of his mind?

Why do this?

Because he is a picture of God’s Redeeming Love. A love that is sacrificial. A love that is costly (it cost him something). A love that acts. That redeems. That buys the unlovely back.

Hosea is a picture of God’s Redeeming Love.

And God’s Redeeming Love is Amazingly Gracious!

I almost called this sermon “God’s Crazy Love” for His people.

God does the unthinkable!
God does the incredible!
It’s almost unbelievable!

God redeems (that is, He buys back) worthless sinners for Himself because of His love for them.

That’s the Gospel.

John 3:16. “God so loved the world [That’s amazing not because the world is so big but because the world is so bad! God so loved the world...] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

He gave.

He bought.

He redeemed us. And not at half-price!

He redeemed us with the most precious commodity in the universe: the blood of the Son of God.

Are you amazed at the redeeming love of God?

You and I were Gomer. Or worse.

We loved the “sacred raisin cakes” of this world.

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still “Gomers” Christ died for us!

We can’t talk about this enough.
We can’t thank God enough for His amazingly gracious redeeming love.
We can’t be Cross-Centered enough.

We can’t dwell enough, remind ourselves enough, live inside of enough the grace of God.

It is love beyond degree.
It is beyond our comprehension.

It should be the theme of our lives.

“How are you doing? Better than I deserve.”

God’s Redeeming Love is Amazingly Gracious. And we need to be amazed.

Are you still amazed at God’s grace to you?
Do you understand how undeserving you are?

I find that people who don’t understand God’s grace don’t understand their sin.

They have an idea that they are pretty good people and that God grades on the curve.

Perhaps you are here today with that assumption. Of course God loves me, I’m great!

But the Good News begins with Bad News. You are not great. And neither am I. We deserve judgment, wrath, and Hell.

We deserve to stay on the slave block as a punishment for our adulterous ways.

But God loves us anyway!

And He gave His One and Only Son to die on the Cross to pay for our sins that whosoever put their trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior shall not get what they deserve but will be bought back instead.

Have you put your trust in God’s Redeeming Love? Have you put yourself in the hands of God’s amazing grace?

He invites you to do so today. Right now where you are. You can turn from your sin and trust in the Savior. And you will experience God’s Redeeming Love.

But it doesn’t stop there.

God loves us in our degraded spiritual state. He accepts us where we are.

But He loves us too much to let us stay there.

#2. GOD’S REDEEMING LOVE IS EFFECTIVELY TRANSFORMING. V.3

Hosea speaks directly to Gomer. “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 live with you.’”

Hosea puts some restrictions on Gomer.

She is to live with him.
She is to not have other lovers.
And (it appears in the Hebrew) that, for a time, even Hosea will not be intimate with her. It could be translated, “I will live [the same] with you,” that is, not intimately.

Hosea’s love calls for transformation.

Gomer can’t live the same way. She is chastened and will be taught to be chaste.

Why? This is what God does with Israel. V.4

“For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol.”

The exile will happen. And the basic institutions of life will be removed. As will their opportunities for idolatry.

There are both good things and bad things that are being taken away from her here in v.4. King and prince is pretty good. Sacrifice was part of the Mosaic Law. So was a kind of ephod. But bad kings and princes will go, too. And bad sacrifices and sacred stones and idols will be banished when Israel is disciplined.

Is this love?

This is love, too. This is transforming love.

God loves you just the way you are. But He loves you too much to let you stay that way.

God accepts you right where you are today. But it is an acceptance unto change.

Israel will be deprived of these things, good and bad, so that all they have is the LORD.

And so they learn to trust in Him alone.
And love Him alone.

Because God’s love is effectively transforming.

That is, it is efficacious. It accomplishes what it sets out to do.

God’s love transforms.

Are you being transformed by God’s love?

Are you different today because you belong to God through Jesus Christ?

Christians live differently than the world, not because they are earning their salvation, but because God is working out their salvation in them.

God’s Redeeming Love is Effectively Transforming.

Are you being transformed by God’s love?

Or are you hindering His work in some way?

Are you being transformed from spiritual nymphomania to loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength?

Where do you need to grow?

Where do you need to change?


God loves you right where you are today, but He loves you too much to let you stay there.

He has not bought you to leave you alone. “Thanks for the blood, God!”

He has bought you to change you into the image of His Son.

And He will do it. His loves is effectively transforming. It will accomplish it’s goal. V.5

“Afterward [after this period of chastening] 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.”

God’s Redeeming Love will not fail.

For Israel, this started to happen in the return from exile.

And then it really started to happen with Israelites became followers of Jesus.

Why do I say that? Because of that word “David” in v.5. David Himself had been dead and gone for more than 200 years!

What David is Hosea predicting? Great David’s Greater Son!

They will come trembling to the LORD and to His blessings, His goodness, in the last days.

This will be fully fulfilled when all of ethnic Israel turns to Christ in the last days (Romans 9-11).

God’s Redeeming Love will not fail.

It will be effective.
It will be transformative.
It will change the hearts and lives of His people.

Are you being transformed by God’s Redeeming Love?

What are you holding back?

This Summer, this book, Hosea is calling you to root out the idols of your heart that have so long captured your attention.

And kill them. Do away with your idols.

No more lovers.

Only the Lord. Come trembling to Him and to His blessings.

Because of God’s Redeeming Love.

It is effectively transforming. Be transformed.

And it is amazingly gracious. Be amazed. Be astonished.

Live in wonder at God’s Redeeming Love.

Let’s pray.