Redeeming Love

Our Bible reading for today is from Hosea 3, verses 1 to 5.

Hosea's reconciliation with his wife.

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 blessing in the last days.

Chabdai is one of the organizations that we sponsor and partner with in our mission giving and our mission strategy.

They work at all sorts of levels to end human slavery and trafficking of people.

It's an awful thing that they come up against, but they do a wonderful work.

What a horrific truth that people often in this world daily will see their children taken into slavery.

I can't imagine that, having a child of mine taken into human slavery.

Can you imagine an opportunity that came up later on to buy your child back out of slavery?

Just imagine that.

They were, there was a selling of slaves, and you had the opportunity, or I had the opportunity to buy them back.

I can tell you, I would do anything.

There would be no cost.

Amen?

There's no cost.

Too high to buy them back, or as the Bible talks about, to redeem them, to redeem them.

Today, we look at the redeeming love of God the Father.

I think this passage, as we, it's unveiled to us what Hosea is asked to do for Goma.

It probably most closely mimics the Gospel, what Jesus has done on behalf of God, to pay the ransom price, to win his people back.

The Gospel of Mark says, the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Today's Scripture is shocking and wonderful.

We will see that God's Redeeming Love pursues the unfaithful, pays the price.

It waits patiently and paves the way for absolute and complete restoration.

Pursuing the unfaithful, verse one.

The Lord said to me, this is to Hosea, 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.

Let's spare a thought for an Old Testament prophet.

What a calling, what a challenge to be a young man and to have the Spirit of God come to you and speak to your heart and say, I want you to speak on my behalf and to declare truth to my people.

But it's going to come through you, not just through your words, but through your actions.

You're going to marry, he says this at the start, an unfaithful woman, a promiscuous woman.

And I'm going to get you to keep loving her and you'll have children and I want you to name them cursed names, remember that?

What a challenge this young man took on, but he did.

He took it on with commitment and passion.

Go show your love to your wife again.

This is a command to re-engage in love, not just duty.

Did you hear that?

Go show your love to your wife.

This is a picture of what God is doing.

He is not just dutifully doing what needs to be done to fix the problem of sin.

He's actually expressing his love.

Isn't it just so amazing to remember this is the God that we know?

Amen?

If you wonder what God is like, he's like a husband that would do anything.

He's like a father that would do anything to redeem his child or his wife out of slavery.

This is the love of God, the God who is love, not just a God who loves.

Though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress.

This is a situation where Goma has come under the control of another man.

It would seem like she is a concubine or a slave at this point.

It's not just an emotional issue, it's structural, it's legal.

She needs to be purchased back.

Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.

This is God's heart.

Though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes, that's just an idea.

Raisin cakes are associated with Baal worship and fertility rights.

So Hosea is representing God, I guess representing the Christian faith, as we apply it to us today, to keep loving someone who is abusive.

As I was preparing this, I couldn't help but stop and think about that.

Is that what we're meant to take as a truth, that no matter what, you need to stay in a relationship where you're being abused.

Years ago, at another church, I sat with a lovely Christian woman, elderly lady.

And she told me about how terrible her life was.

She told me about how she was abused so frequently by her husband, who was a nominal Christian, who came to our church.

She said, I just want to leave him, but I know I can't, because as a Christian, this is my lot in life.

I am bound to the mast.

Is that what we're meant to take from this?

I don't think it is.

I don't think this is the side note that the point of Hosea winning his wife back is to say, Christians are meant to be abused, no matter what.

In fact, Galatians 6 verse 7 says, Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows.

Whoever sows to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction.

Whoever sows to please the spirit from the spirit will reap eternal life.

The Bible teaches that there is a sowing and there's a reaping.

And have you realized that it can be concurrent with the grace of God being manifest in a person's life?

Have you seen that?

So, God can do a work but he doesn't stop us reaping what we've sown.

Would you agree?

So, there can be a consequence for people who are reaping, who are sowing sinfully.

It's really one of the key ideas in the Book of Hosea that we won't get to look at.

Chapter 8 verse 7 says, they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

The stork has no head, it will produce no flower.

Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up.

What God is saying is, I am telling you about how much I want Israel to know that they are loved by me.

Hosea is going to act it out to his wife Goma.

But they're still going to get judged.

What they sow, they will reap.

Hosea 10 verse 12 says, So righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love and break up your unplowed ground.

For it is time to seek the Lord until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.

So Hosea is urging Israel to change, to plant righteousness, and God's mercy will come from that.

But they are going to reap what they have sown in sin.

So I hope that is something that could be helpful for some of us to hear.

The Bible does not teach us to just be doormats.

Would anyone agree with me?

To just put up with sin and abuse.

That's not what we're called to do.

We're called to love and we're called to express truth and move towards justice and get there through the cross.

All these things are really quite complex, but the love of God that redeems is a miraculous, incredible thing and it's held in tension with his justice.

Have you experienced the pursuing love of God?

Have you experienced his love that pursues you?

I'm looking for nods.

Have you experienced the love that we are reading about between Hosea and Goma?

Wasn't it a beautiful picture on the road to Damascus when God's redeeming love was shown in Jesus reaching out to Saul?

Saul, the zealot who was killing the Christians in the early days of the church.

Jesus went and he showed himself in his glory to Saul, and Saul was struck blind, and yet he was ultimately brought into a revelation of who Jesus was and is, and his name was changed to Paul, and he becomes the guy that writes half of the New Testament.

He probably still suffered with a thorn in the flesh.

Maybe it was part of the ongoing pain he had in his life, reaping what he had sown when he did all those awful things, killing people.

Saul is a wonderful example of the redeeming love of God, pursuing those who are heading in the opposite direction, and his love is exactly the same today.

We know a God of redeeming love who pursues the unfaithful.

Hallelujah.

And he pays the price.

Hosea 3 verse 2 says, So I bought her, I was told to, so I bought her my wife back for fifteen shekels of silver, and about a homer and a lefek of barley.

This adds up to about thirty shekels, the price of a slave.

Love pays a price.

Jesus paid the price for us, didn't he?

It's what the scriptures tell us in 1 Peter 1.

You know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed.

That commercial language, redeemed to pay the price.

You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

If God had to pay a price, who did he pay the price to?

Have you had that discussion in a Bible study?

Who did he pay the price to?

Mark 10 says the son of man gave his life as a ransom, a price paid for many.

First Timothy 2, Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all people.

Who did he pay the price to?

The Greek word for ransom is litron.

It means a price paid to free a slave.

Who did he pay the price to?

Well, the early church had this idea, the ransom to Satan theory.

And it was this idea that humanity was in slavery to Satan and God, the Father, was paying the price to redeem his people out of Satan's grasp.

I won't ask you to raise your hands.

That probably overstates, don't you think?

It overstates the power and authority of Satan.

It sounds like it's probably what it means, but it's most likely not that.

It doesn't seem to be what the Bible teaches.

And it has been rejected by the church over the years, that the ransom price was paid to Satan.

No.

The second major idea is the ransom was paid to God himself.

Penal substitution.

The justice of God demanded a payment for sin.

And this is certainly what we read in Romans 3.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice to demonstrate his justice.

Who was he presenting the sacrifice to?

To himself.

Isaiah 53.

It was the Lord's will to crush him.

Galatians 3.

Christ redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us.

In this view, God pays the price to himself, to his own justice.

A third view is Christus Victor, which believes that Jesus' death and resurrection defeated Satan's sin and death, setting the captives free.

And it wasn't so much paying anybody, but it was declaring what needed to be done to win back those who had been enslaved.

It was a celebration of victory, a price paid for that, for the liberation of his people.

What we do know is the Bible highlights these things.

God pays the price.

He satisfies his own holiness.

God sets us free.

And probably to answer this question, the most incredible verse we find in the Bible, I think, is 2 Corinthians 5.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

Isn't that just the most amazing verse?

It's not just that God sent his son as a price to pay to himself.

What was God doing?

God was in his son.

God was there on the cross.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, absorbing the cost.

Hosea is to pay the price.

This is what God has done through Jesus.

Paid the price to win back his lost people.

He pursues the unfaithful.

He pays a price and he patiently waits.

The redeeming love of God patiently waits.

Hosea 3 says, 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.

Live with me many days.

There will be a season of healing.

This is not going to happen overnight.

There will be a process.

You must not be a prostitute or be intimate with anyone else.

Don't go back to those former behaviours.

There's going to be a process of learning, of relearning what it means to be my wife, of embracing covenant living, of being cleansed of what you have lived through.

And he says, I'll behave the same way to you.

We will commit to a mutual abstinence.

This is not a punishment, but a sacred pause for healing.

It's interesting, isn't it?

It's not just declared.

It's hard to believe the love of God being expressed through Josiah's desire to win back, and receive back and forgive his wife.

But there's a time component in it.

Isn't it a great thing to always remember that light, light that is required to see what God has done, Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God, the heavens are saying, look at me, I was made by God.

But none of that can happen without time, can it?

Because light needs a wave.

We can't see anything that God has made without light.

And light takes, what, time.

Now, if I turn a light on in my eye, it won't take very long for it to reach my eye, but if it's a star in the universe that God has made, it's been traveling, the light wave has been traveling a really long time for me to see it.

And I always find that really helpful to just remember the revelation of God's love, His light, His grace, normally takes time for me to appropriate it.

Healing needs time in the same way.

This is a four-quadrant model of healing, which is really helpful.

It's from Henry Noun and a few of his associates.

Have a look at this and think about it with regard to reconciliation and healing, especially healing from trauma, because Goma has lived trauma, hasn't she?

An awful experience where she gets to the place of giving herself away to other men and being unfaithful.

Someone who is trying to find the healing God has made available for them starts with faith in Christ, but it also then moves to a safe space.

The elderly woman I was talking to, I think it would have been good for her to come out of that safe space for a period, that traumatic space, that unsafe space, and actually be safe.

And that's so often what needs to happen.

If you're in a place that's being bombed, what do you need to do?

Get out of there.

Come to a safe place.

And then when you go to that safe place, and Goma is coming back to be with Hosea, she's not in an abusive environment, by God's grace, she needs time.

That's what the text is saying.

In a very succinct little way, there is patience required.

And I think it's a strong picture of what happens in the Christian faith.

It just takes repentance and faith just to believe, and you can be saved.

But to be sanctified, become more and more like Jesus, takes time, amen?

We need patience.

Goma needed patience.

But are you going to do all that by yourself?

You can do some of it by yourself, but what you really need are some people in community.

You need presence.

You need companionship.

So there's this picture of restorative healing involves a safe place, the time for process to have its opportunity, in the presence of people that will be helpful and loving, and then what are you going to do there?

What's Goma going to do to be healed?

She's going to tell a story, because Goma's got a story, amen?

Like Goma's not just a character over there, it's like, oh, it's all about Hosea, and Goma's just a bad person.

Goma's got a story.

She's had a lot of pain in her life.

She's been sinned against, and she's been a sinner.

She needs time to come into the redeeming love of God.

I don't know about you, but I really value that four-quadrant model of restorative healing, and I would submit it to you as something to think about for those that you are ministering to, and even yourself.

Jesus says this about the kingdom of God, doesn't he?

The restorative love of God coming through the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom.

He says it's like a seed.

It's like a seed, it grows slowly.

You can be declared righteous, and God does, through Jesus, when we put our faith in Christ, that you are saved, you are healed, you are completely forgiven.

But to take on that restoration, it does take time.

That's what sanctification is.

It's a seed in the ground, and God does it work.

God's redeeming love pursues the unfaithful, which I just keep on saying and I get used to hearing it, but I want to say to myself, don't do that.

Remember, those words are just the most beautiful words.

He pursues me when I am unfaithful, and he pursues you when you are unfaithful.

That is the love of our God.

Hallelujah.

He pursues the unfaithful, and he's paying the price and has paid the price.

And he patiently waits, and he invites us to wait patiently because he has paved the way.

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.

So, Hosea is prophesying what will happen.

And we've said last week, this doesn't happen ultimately until Jesus makes a way.

But so, what does he tell them?

Many days without king or prince, that means you're going to be exiled.

Politically, you will have instability.

Israel will lose its monarch and you'll lose your national identity.

Without sacrifice or sacred stone.

Hosea is saying, you won't get to do the good offering of worship, sacrifice, and you won't even get to do the idol worship stuff.

The sacred stones, and in the same way without ephod or household gods, you won't have a righteous priest to give you guidance with an ephod, and you also won't have household gods.

The discipline of God will be harsh.

But then verse 5, again, we see the love of God coming through afterward, a future time, after exile, after discipline, you will return and seek the Lord your God, covenant language.

There will be repentance and renewal.

And you will seek David your king.

That's a messianic hope, isn't it?

Jesus fulfills that.

And you're going to come at a future time, trembling, a posture of awe and reverence.

You've been absolutely rebellious, my people Israel.

But there will be a time when my people will come with reverence, and you'll fear me.

In the last days, eschatological language, God's plan will finally be executed in Jesus the Messiah.

So he paves the way for his people to come back home and ultimately to live forever with God himself in a new world.

I wonder if you've ever been bush bashing.

Anyone?

Look at that.

People who live in Hornsby, every hand goes up.

Yeah.

If I ask this at Carringbar, not many people put their hand up, but I've said, if you ever got been dumped by a wave in the sea.

Oh yeah.

But we've all known what it's like to bush bash, because you're walking along a trail and you want to get up to there and you think, oh, if I just go off the trail and bush bash, I'm sure I'll get there quicker.

And bush bashing is often hard.

Does anyone know a story of making a bad decision to bush bash?

And you cut yourself and you fall over and you maybe get completely lost.

I think it's a really powerful picture of the road of life.

The people of Israel have been bush bashing for years.

We want to do our own thing, Lord.

Obeying your commands, ah, I think we've got a better idea ourselves.

It's crazy stuff.

They've been bush bashing away and we can too.

And we feel like when you're bush bashing, I have complete freedom.

But you're not as free as you think.

If there's a way that's been paved, that's been manicured to get you to your destination, it's far wiser to walk that road.

And that's the picture here, that Gomer is to be won back and there's time required, there's patience required.

But God has paved the way to full, eternal, everlasting restoration.

722 BC., the Assyrians come in and they kill a lot of the Northern Israelites, ten tribes in the North, and they take the rest off.

We don't hear about them again.

587 BC., the two tribes in the South who have been singing songs like Zion will never fall, Zion will never fall, we're the good guys, they were the bad guys.

You can find Psalms that reflect this.

587 BC., Nebuchadnezzar came and finished off the job, destroyed the temple, sacked it of all its wealth, and destroyed Jerusalem.

Seventy years later, they were waiting and waiting, looking at the prophetic writings, especially Isaiah.

Seventy years later, the message of Isaiah 40 comes true, when they are allowed to go home.

They're now under the Persians, and they're allowed to go home back to Israel, to Jerusalem, and then we hear about Ezra and Nehemiah, and the rebuilding of the temple as they go back.

But this is the message that God gave his people, which really speaks to paving the way.

Isaiah 40, comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her her hard service has been completed, her sin has been paid for.

She has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins, 70 years of punishment.

I'm gonna bring you back.

A voice of one calling in the wilderness.

Who said that, those words in the New Testament?

John the Baptist.

Remember, John the Baptist began, he came from the wilderness, and he came and said, a voice of one calling.

God is taking the valleys and lifting them up.

He's taking the lantana and clearing it.

He's taking the bush and moving it aside and creating a pathway for the people to come back to him.

A voice of one calling in the wilderness.

Prepare the way for the Lord.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up.

Every mountain and hill made low.

The rough ground shall become level.

The rugged places are plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed.

And all people will see it together.

This is the redeeming love of God acted out finally through Jesus.

Hallelujah.

He makes a way for us to get back, to get home, to come out of our trauma and to get healed.

The redeeming love of God is the most incredible thing you'll ever find in your life.

He pursued the unfaithful.

That's us.

He has paid the ransom price to win his children back from slavery.

He's paid it to himself to satisfy his justice.

He's patiently waiting and he asks us to patiently wait, to keep trusting in his promises and his teaching.

The grace of God will teach us to say no to ungodliness and to live in the power of the gospel and the power of the Spirit.

And he's paved the way for us to be fully restored.

You know, it was a wonderful privilege to stand here with the Westbrook family last Wednesday and to remember a man who put his faith in Jesus, who Jesus said, I am the hodos, the Greek word for road.

I am the road, I'm the paved way, I'm the way, the truth and the life.

Anyone who follows me will never die, but they're going to have eternal life.

They're going to live forever.

And that's our hope, isn't it?

That's what we celebrated real time last Wednesday.

And I saw a family who believed that, and they didn't grieve the same as people who grieve without Jesus.

Hallelujah.

Because he has paved our way through death.

He went there himself and kicked out the back of the tomb and went through into eternal life.

And he says, follow me.

I know the way.

I have done everything the Father needed me to do to redeem you from the slavery of sin.

Wow, the Gospel is good news, isn't it?

What good news?

We are pursued even though we're unfaithful.

He has paid the price.

We can't pay anymore.

Get that.

We're not adding to it.

It's fully paid.

We don't have to do good works to satisfy what God's price was.

Jesus' blood is enough and our job is to follow him, patiently allowing him to mold us into the likeness of Christ in community because he has paved a way that can never be stopped to take us home to glory.

The son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Do we have a testimony in this room as the band comes up to lead us?

Has anyone lived through that and you could, for 60 seconds or so, grab a microphone and say, I experienced that.

Everything you just said, I've experienced it and I would love to just testify, this God is still redeeming people.

Can I take a microphone to you?

‍