Hosea 14 Keep Returning

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series on the book of Hosea, a study in God's relentless love.

Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak.

I'm the lead pastor here. And here we are gathered together in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God has been kind and He has been gracious to bring us into a community that loves

God and loves each other. And it's been awesome to see that we're not a perfect church, but we are

His church and He has indeed let His face shine upon us in His blessings over these years.

I've had a front row seat over the last 16 years to see all of us growing in faith, growing in community and growing in service.

And over the past few months, we've been growing that way in our understanding of God's holiness and in our own depravity through the

Old Testament book of Hosea. We're going to be wrapping that up this morning, but it's been a long journey through some passages of stern rebuke and kind of scary judgments and highlighting and highlighting of our own sinfulness and our own brokenness.

And so where the book lands is actually in a pretty exciting place. It lands in a place of recognizing that God will take us back.

God will take us back. If we would return to Him, He will take us back. He lands in a softer place than we would expect as of reading and studying the rest of the book.

You're not quite sure where all this is going, but the entire last chapter is filled with hope centered on one word, return, return.

There is hope always found in the possibility that sinners would repent and turn and return to God.

The entire series has been about God's relentless love for a people who have continued to reject

His affection, His relentless love toward us. He's pursued them and continued to pursue them, and they've run off with other lovers, and that's the metaphor of the entire book of Hosea.

It's as if what He wants to communicate is He is married to His people in covenant, especially

Israel in that old covenant, but Israel, His people have rejected Him.

They are to be His people. He is to be their God. But all throughout Hosea, God has been likened to a jilted husband.

Israel has run off pursuing other lovers in a promiscuous frenzy, is the image. And this is very much like us when we sin against God.

We lean on, if we're honest, if we're honest, and that's where authenticity comes in as a core value in our church, we want to be an honest people.

We want to be true to what is real in our lives and in our hearts, and if you're honest with me, then

I believe that it's true that you have a tendency to lean on many other things to get you through this life when

God wants to be leaned on. He wants to be your guide. He wants to be your support. He wants to be trusted.

He wants to be enough for you. The main point here this morning is that a life lived without God in this fallen world is a life that requires that we keep returning to Him, a life that continues to return to the

Almighty. Of course, then the main application, and I'll go ahead and steal my thunder from the end of the message, the main application is going to be...not

a cough, but hold on just a second...the

main application will, of course, be to return to Him and then keep doing so, keep returning to God.

The text will spell out in more detail what returning to Him looks like as we read it and study it later, and it's also going to highlight what

He pledges to do when His people return to Him, but the big picture of this entire book is the story arc of a runaway bride, and here in the end, it is promised that she will return to the

One who has chosen her. She will return to the One who loved her. She will return to the

One who blessed her, and He will, in the end, be enough for her.

So let's open our Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices to Hosea chapter 14, just nine verses, but pack a punch in terms of the entire book and what

God has been trying to communicate through Hosea, a glorious passage about returning and recasting the very words,

I hope, that you feel in your soul this morning. Follow along, give it respect, give it your attention, try to keep your mind from wandering.

That's why I ask you to open to it, but Hosea chapter 14, return, O 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 except 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 works of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy. I will heal their apostasy.

I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the 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. O 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.

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."

Let's pray. Father, it's been a journey through the book of Hosea.

It's been a lot, waves of judgment and even words that seem shocking to our system and words of judgment that seem shocking to our system.

We need these kind of wake -up calls. We need to be shaken awake to the reality of what sin costs and what sin does in its breaking of relationships.

We've turned that thing over and looked at so many facets of sin over the last few months of going through Hosea, and now we come here to a conclusion that reminds us that you who know us in every intimate detail of our brokenness, every evil thought, every wicked thing that has transpired, everything that our hands have done, the corruption, the brokenness, the sinfulness, and you would ask for us to return to you.

You would offer your love freely. You would offer forgiveness to people like us.

Father, I pray that that reality would settle on us in a new and fresh way. Even those of us who have been walking with you for years might be moved with enthusiasm and delight and gladness over this great, awesome, awesome love that you have given to us.

And then, Father, that maybe even today would be a day of reckoning for some, of realizing your love expressed despite our warts, despite our ugliness, the ugliness of our sin and the brokenness of our hearts, and that you are eager if we would just return.

Father, may today be a day of returning. Even as we have an opportunity to sing these songs,

I pray that you would speak to our hearts even through the flow that Dave Bunn has chosen for us in leading us and guiding us toward a conclusion here of our brokenness, our sin, the chains that bound us, and now,

Father, the great joy and gladness in the reception of you, you receiving your sons and daughters back.

We look forward to that day when all of this is done, all of it rolled up, and we are with you for eternity in love and in goodness forever and ever.

But until that day, we will continue to sing your praises, and we rejoice in the opportunity to do so now in the gathering of your people in Jesus' name.

Reopen your Bibles to Hosea chapter 14, and if at any time you need to get up and use the restrooms or get more coffee or donut holes, you can take advantage of that back there.

I'll start with a question, and it's a generic question, but it's one that I think all of us ought to be asking and ought to be routinely checking up on, and it's simply this, what are you looking for in life?

What are you looking for in life? This is a real question that all of us need to address in our own hearts, and like I said, even frequently.

But what will be enough for you? What will be enough for you? Are you dissatisfied with your money and want just a little bit more?

Are you hoping to get your slice of fame, or how about being recognized for your soaring intellect and contribution to the intellectual world?

Is it athletics that you want to excel at? The pursuit of goals and dreams are not in and of themselves bad, but I think all of us know, and we probably had it beat into us over time, that these things cannot satisfy, and we know that.

But I think it's really stark when you hear it from somebody like Tom Brady, who when interviewed after he put on his third

Super Bowl ring at age 27, and he was interviewed by 60 Minutes, and he said, quote, it's got to be more than this.

This can't be what it's all cracked up to be. I've done it. I mean, I'm 27, and what else is there for me?

And when the interviewer asked him, then what's the answer? Really pointedly, what's the answer? Tom Brady demonstrated that he was asking a much deeper question than sports when he answered,

I wish I knew. I wish I knew. I mean, just exposing a little bit of his heart, he didn't answer three more rings, which we know he got, but I wish

I knew was his response. Let me ask you all, are you satisfied in Christ, or are you looking for something more?

You got Christ, are you looking for something more, or is He enough?

Is He enough? You see, the people of Israel have spent a long season away from God looking for other things.

They had Him already, and they're looking for something more, pursuing other loves, trying to fix themselves up, trying to get the right mix of life to satisfy themselves, and they plunged headlong into idolatry.

They plunged headlong into sexual immorality. They became embroiled in political intrigue and all kinds of politics and things that they thought would satisfy them, even to the point of assassinating their own kings, trying to get just the right leader.

You know what? Our problem isn't us. Our problem is our leadership. Let's solve that. Or they eventually became the victims of their own sins, putting their trust in the wrong alliances leading to their own invasion and destruction and eventual exile.

Our text this morning shows the pathway of return to the Lord after you've spent some time doing things your own way.

All of us go our own way. If we're honest, we've all gone our own way. But God here calls us to return home to Him through this text, return to His love, return to His protection, return to the

One who gives good gifts to His children. And our outline looks like this. First we're going to see in the text what sinners do, verses 1 through 3.

The second thing we're going to see is what God will do, verses 4 through 8. So what sinners should do, what

God will do, and then why we listen to Hosea, and that's the final verse 9. What sinners should do can be summarized in a word, and I could have just said return to God as our first point, but I wanted to leave it with what we ought to do because that really is the focus of the text.

What we ought to do is return. When the prodigal son came to his senses, what did he do?

He returned to his father. The call to all of us as God's cherished image bearers is to return to our

Creator, to return to the One who made us, to return to the One who has rightful ownership over us in the first place, so go back to Him.

As a matter of fact, we see this as a command right away in verse 1, the very first word in the

English Standard Version, return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. To Israel, Hosea says, return to the

Lord your God. Now I want to point out God hasn't gone anywhere. God hasn't gone on vacation.

You've got to go find Him. He's not skipped out on you. We're the ones who rebel and run away from Him, but He is in the business of taking back wayward runaways.

He will take us back whenever we come to our senses, whenever we come to our senses, and turn back to Him.

I state this up here regularly, and I'm not sure if it quite speaks to everybody in the same way. This is what

I mean in my statement when I say I want God to keep me on a short leash. You guys have heard me say that before, and it might hit different ears different ways depending on how you view leashes and dogs and things like that.

What is Don saying? I want to be quickly convicted in my heart when

I go astray, which I do. Anytime that any one of us sins, it can rightly be said we have walked away from God in that sin.

I want to remain sensitive to the Spirit's nudge that I am going astray when I do so. Do you know what

I'm talking about? I don't want to get far down that road. I don't want to keep walking and walking and walking, and God just say, you know what, go your own way.

Go the way you want. I want Him to yank that leash when I start going away from Him off into the woods after other things.

Do you know what I'm talking about? I want that. I pray for that. I ask for that. Do you talk to God that way and say,

God, please don't let me be given over to my sin. Don't let me go down this road. Verse 1 would be an excellent one to memorize in your fight against sin.

I would encourage all of us to memorize it. Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Though it's written to Israel, I think it would be absolutely fine to insert your own name in there as a reminder that the call on your life is to keep returning to God and keep reminding of yourself of that regularly.

To say, return, O Don, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

And when God brings to your mind your sinfulness, that this verse would come to your mind.

Return, return, insert your name, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

How many of you know what it means to stumble because of your iniquity? Because you've experienced it. You know, and it's different.

It takes a different shape and a different form for each one of us, but all of us tempted, all of us brought into that life of sin through our flesh.

We all stumble, but certainly not the same. And not all to the same degree, of course, but since God isn't grading on a curve, we ought to consider ourselves and our own sin first, right?

He's not grading on a curve. You can't look at others and go, well, at least I'm not that bad. I cannot return to God for you.

That's up to you, right? You know what I'm talking about? That's on you. But the need to return to God is because of iniquity, the text is very clear, because of our sinfulness, and this shows that we create a gap between us and God in relationship when we commit iniquity, when we break

His laws, when we go against the way that He's designed things to go. Sin gets between us and God, and the need to return is made when we become dissatisfied with Him and go off to do things our way.

And again, all of us know what that means. But when we return, what do we bring with us to make it right?

What are we commanded to bring with us to make it right? When you return to God, what do you bring to Him?

And the text actually gives us something to bring to God. When you recognize your sin, when you recognize your depravity, when you go like, oh my goodness,

I'm breaking Your law again, what do you bring to God? And verse 2 might surprise us.

He says, emphatically, bring words. Bring words.

How many of you, that's like a little counterintuitive to what you thought He was going to say to bring. He doesn't say bring bulls,

He doesn't say bring goats, He doesn't say bring sacrifices, He doesn't say bring your money, He doesn't say bring your church attendance.

What does He say to bring? Words. Oh guys, talking to the men in the room, uh -oh, uh -oh, many of us don't have many words.

And what He wants from you is words. That's crazy.

And even here, a return to God requires words because salvation is always presented in relationship terms.

It's about a broken relationship. How do you restore a broken relationship? You've got to have some words.

Words are necessary for reconciliation. Worship and obedience is not strictly found in our speech.

There are other things that we do in obedience to God other than words, right? You know what I'm talking about? There are other things.

But a right relationship with God, a restored relationship with God, always begins with our words.

It begins with our speech. It does. If we confess our need for salvation in Christ and confess

Jesus Christ as our Lord with our mouths, we will be rescued, we will be saved.

Confess with your mouth. Declare it. Say it with words.

How central is speech to us in our relationship with God?

God communicates in words. God created us as beings that communicate with words. Is it any wonder that our relationship with Him requires words?

And Hosea primes the pump. Here, I think it's beautiful because for those of us guys who just don't have many words and is like,

I don't know what to say, he's like, okay, I'll do it for you. I'll give you a sampling. I'll give you an example of what to do in this return to God's speech after you've spent a season away from Him.

By the way, have any of you ever rehearsed a conversation in your mind? You knew a tough conversation was coming. Go ahead and raise your hand.

You've rehearsed some conversations in your mind. If you're anything like me, there may even be times I can express myself generally better in writing than I can in spoken word.

And so from that, I've often written things out. Anybody like me on that? You have a tendency to write it out and like rehash it and edit it and kind of figure it out.

I've written down some of those harder conversations. But the components of this return to God speech are written for us here, and they're exemplary for us, and they're worth some note -taking.

Even if you're not a note -taker, I'd encourage you to take some notes on this, at least this section. First, in your speech, bringing words to God, make sure your words include a request to take away your iniquity.

Take away my iniquity. Forgiveness and removal of guilt is really our only hope to be restored to a holy

God. By the way, we're going to see this in verse 2. Take with you words and return to the Lord and say to Him, take away all our iniquity except 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 our hands, and you, the orphan, finds mercy.

These are all part of those words to bring to God in that moment of restoration, in that moment of repentance, in that moment of return to Him.

I need you to take my sins away. Ask Him for that. That right there is the catch for many people, by the way, asking

Him for help. Just that in itself is a hurdle to many people that they cannot overcome. The humility required in saying,

I have sinned against you, and I need something from you. That is where pride wells up in our hearts and goes, or can

I just fix it myself? Can I just solve this on my own? The more pride we have, the less we ask for help.

And so, our return to God begins with words, and it is, I need you to take away my sin.

I need you. It starts there. I need you. Second, ask

Him to accept what is good. And that might be confusing to us, and it's something that I don't think many of us have probably even prayed hardly at all.

But the good that is required of us, according to the New Testament, I think is fair to bring to bear in this.

When you come back to God, what are you asking Him to accept? Well, the good that is required of us in the

New Testament is faith, confession, humility, and contrition. That's the good.

And consider this for a moment. I think most of us have a tendency to think that God will accept any good that comes

His way. As long as it's good, He'll accept it. But have you ever asked Him to accept your worship? Think about it.

I've rarely done that, but I think this text would indicate we ought to. Ask Him to accept what is good in you and accept this as worship.

Do you ask Him to accept your faith and trust and love for Him? Ask Him to accept whatever good there is in your relationship with Him.

Ask Him. Ask Him to remove your iniquity and then to accept what you offer to Him as good.

And then after asking Him to accept good, then offer to Him sacrifices of worship, be it praise, be it offerings of service, or even financial resources.

And this is not at all about buying Him off. This is about acknowledging His worth. When's the last time you considered verbally committing to anything to the

Lord? A level or an amount of giving, an amount of service, or for that matter, any level of spiritual commitment to God.

When have you talked with Him about it? This passage is telling us to bring words and talk with Him about what you desire to do for Him.

If you're anything like me, when it comes to your giving, you set an amount. It comes out of my credit union account, sending a check every month.

And if we're not careful, our service and our giving can become disconnected from worship, right?

It can become transactional, just like anything else in our lives. Even our service. Ah, it's my Sunday again,

I'm going to work and recast kids, right? Or it's my Sunday again, I'm going to come and make the coffee. And it just becomes a pattern in our lives where we don't talk to God about it.

Have you ever on the drive in here to serve the Lord said, God, please receive this as worship? Have you ever on the way to your business and your workplace said,

God, receive this day as worship? Do you see how that would alter and change the way that you view what you're about to do?

Getting in your car behind the wheel, God, accept the way that I drive this car as worship? I come back there a lot, but it's low -hanging fruit.

Yeah, we have to be careful about our lives becoming transactional and not relational. Are you relating to God in your life or are you just doing some stuff?

There's a big difference. Verse three continues, the types of words we ought to bring, but these take a turn and they become rejections that make up our return.

There are things that, by the way, it's not just coming to God, but it's rejecting some things. Do you know what I'm talking about?

There are things in your life that in your return you will need to reject. In order to return to God, every single one of us has things we need to turn away from.

And for Israel, they needed to turn away from some specific things that maybe probably aren't a struggle for you. They were trusting in foreign policy and alliances with neighboring nations.

Probably not many of us are here. That's our primary sin, right? That was the sin of the people. They were, as a nation, they were trusting in foreign alliances to rescue them and save them.

That's the very thing that resulted in their downfall. They needed to stop trusting in their military might, which is found in the phrase, we will not ride on horses.

But even more pointed to their confession is their need to stop worshiping idols. We will no longer say, my

God, to the things that we've made, the things of our hands. What do you need to give up in your return to God?

What do you need to give up in your return to God? Bring words and say it to him.

I surrender my entertainment to you. I surrender my free time to you.

I surrender my ease and my attitude of having earned all my time off to you.

Whatever it might be, whatever it might be for each and every one of us, what is it that you need to surrender? I surrender my 401k to you.

I surrender my savings. I surrender my... What is it for you? It's gonna be different for each one of you, but you know what you worship.

And it's bleeding out, and probably you could ask your best friend, and they could tell you if they're gonna be honest. Or your spouse, or somebody who lives with you.

Well, that could be dangerous, asking your spouse, what do I worship? Be careful with those conversations.

Make sure your love can handle that. Over 20 years ago now,

I was working at Western Michigan University with a ministry called ISI. It was International Students Incorporated.

We worked with international students. It's a nationwide thing centered in Colorado Springs. Working primarily with international students to share the gospel with foreign people who come over here.

And I don't know if you know, but at least back in the day, in the early 2000s, there were a lot of people from Saudi Arabia, for example, here.

A lot of international students that had an agree... Nations that had an agreement with Western, and they were sending students here.

Over the course of about a year, I had the chance to do studies with a lot of people through the Bible. They were interested.

They were here. They were like, explain American culture to me. I was like, well, Christianity is a really central thing in our culture.

So I was able to share the Bible with many. And there was one young man particularly from India, and he was kind of lonely and homesick and didn't really connect with the rest of the

Indian community here. He was a devout Hindu, and I hadn't really met a devout Hindu before, and so we struck up a friendship.

He had little idols in his apartment that he'd put a little bowl of rice to, or a little bit of milk to, or whatever.

And I was like, you know you gotta pour that out later, right? They don't actually eat it. It was kind of like a weird thing, but literal offerings to idols.

He was straight up like worshiping idols. We studied through the book of Matthew, and he came to church with us several times.

We were attending a different church, and he came with us a few times until he ended up transferring out to a university in Connecticut.

And I kind of had lost touch. We're friends on Facebook now, and we've interacted a little bit. But one Sunday after church, he came over to eat with my family.

And then we were downstairs kind of in the living room just talking, and after lunch sitting there and having a conversation, and he said,

I'm ready. And I said, ready? For what? And he said clearly and as pointedly as possible,

I'm ready to take Jesus Christ as my Lord. I was like, whoa, all right. And at the same time, in the back of my mind was, as another

Lord? That's a Hindu tendency, right? Like take him as, you know, one more.

And so you have to understand that back in the day, what I would have done naturally in this moment would have been to say like, okay, bow your head and fold your hands and let's pray, and I'll lead you in a prayer, like kind of Billy Gramish kind of thing, you know, like that sinner's prayer.

How many of you are familiar with what I'm talking about when I say the sinner's prayer? Like walk them through. I'm a sinner. I need a

Savior. Thank you for sending Jesus, all that. But for some reason, very uncharacteristically, I just said, okay, why don't you pray?

I wanted to hear what he was thinking. He voluntarily, and I said, why don't you pray? He knelt down by my couch, and I was like, okay,

I guess we're doing this. Like I was like, well, we could sit here and pray, but like we're going to kneel. So we knelt at the couch, and at this point he began to pray in a way that I could have never led him, and this is all coming down to a point of that all of us have to reject something in order to come back to God, and he said,

God Almighty, I reject Shiva. I reject Vishnu. I reject Hanuman. I reject

Kali, and he went about ten different names of Hindu gods and goddesses, and then he ended it with, and I receive

Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And I was like, what? What?

That's not the prayer I would have led him in, but he knew what he needed to reject in his return to his

Maker. He knew what was in the way. Do you know what's in the way for you, church?

There are things in the way of your relationship with your God right now, today.

Are you ready to say to Him, I reject this, and I accept you.

I want you to rule and reign over me. And this is a lifestyle, church. Yes, he did that for the first time, but he's had to do it again, and he's had to do it again, and he's had to do it again, but keep doing it.

Keep returning to your Lord. He knew he couldn't tack on Jesus to other side gods.

It wasn't going to be Jesus and Shiva, and for us it won't be Jesus and money, and it can't be

Jesus and drugs, and it can't be Jesus and sexual immorality, Jesus and self -dependence.

What is God telling you that you need to reject in returning to Him today? Verse 3 ends with the declaration of confidence in God to hear.

He will listen and He will hear. In God, he says, Hosea records for us, he says, say this, in you the orphan finds mercy.

What's that about? This final declaration conveys trust that God gives mercy to the one who cries out in their neediness.

Hosea is saying, admit your status as an orphan. Come in your meek and lowly position for mercy, and God is the kind of God who grants mercy to the one who comes to Him with that kind of humility.

Our part is to come with requests for help, to come with confession, to come rejecting the things we are tempted to trust instead of God, and to return with the knowledge that we are returning to the

God who shows mercy to the downtrodden, to the humbled, the ones who are at the end of themselves.

Amen? Is that your God? Is that your God? Well, the second movement in the text is what

God will do if we come to Him, if we return to Him with words and with this kind of humility. In verses four through six,

God does amazing things for the one who returns to Him. The first thing is shocking to my ears as a pastor.

I will heal their apostasy. Apostasy. Apostasy is a strong word.

It's a strong religious word that any pastor has had to wrestle with and try to think through, because how many of you know somebody who's walked away from their faith, who's completely shunned it and completely walked away and said,

I reject Jesus, I reject my upbringing, I reject all the things. Deconstructed is another way we might word it.

How many of you know what I'm talking about when I say deconstruction? You all know somebody? And the word apostasy here is that kind of strong word, like as in rejection of God, rejection of Jesus, and He can heal that apostasy.

By the way, that's a play on words in the Hebrew language. What it reads like in Hebrew is,

He heals those who return to Him from their turning away from Him. He heals those who return to Him from their turning away from Him.

The word turning is the word for turning away from the Almighty God. And what do we need healing from, church?

What deeply do we need? Now, you could name it, and you could say the specific name of the sin, and I think that's good. But we need ultimate healing from our very rejection of God, from our turning away from Him.

A stark example of this kind of healing is found in John 21, starting in verse 15. You don't need to turn there.

You could jot that down if you're a note taker. You got a pen. John 21, starting in verse 15, where Jesus restores

Peter three times for his rejection of Jesus three times. Three times,

Peter said, I don't know you. Peter turned away from Jesus. He walked away. He swore to a little girl,

I don't even know the man. Dang it, I don't even know him. Don't even know who you're talking about. That's what

Peter said about Jesus, is Jesus is getting ready to go to the cross for him. And there in John 21,

Jesus restores Peter. And it's not by chance that He does it three times. Peter, do you love me?

Then I've got a job for you to do. Feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Lord, you know I do. Then feed my sheep.

No, Peter, do you really love me? Lord, you know all things. You know all things.

And He restores Peter to usefulness in His kingdom. Church, God can heal our wayward actions.

This is an amazing truth that is filled with hope here at the end of Hosea. Apostasy being our deconstructions, our rejections of Him.

God can heal the one who denies Him. Peter stands as a stark reminder that God is able to overcome any sin in our lives if we will return to Him.

If we will return to Him, He will overcome whatever rejection you have had of Him.

God promises His joyful, uncoerced, unearned love. He says here in the text,

I will love them freely. I will heal their apostasy and I will love them freely. I want to point out

God is the only one who is truly free. He acts according to His character without any restraint.

And when His anger is turned from His people, He loves us freely.

The one way for His anger to be returned, of course, to be turned, is through the only way for His anger to be turned from us, is through sacrifice.

And in the new covenant, we no longer need to bring sacrifices because God has provided the once for all sacrifice through Jesus Christ on the cross.

His anger is turned. And that phrase, anger being turned, is actually an image of a really big theological word, propitiation.

Propitiation means the absorbing or the appeasing of the wrath of God. And that's what God has done for us in Jesus.

Jesus being a propitiation and appeasing of God's wrath there on the cross. He loves us, church, and He loves us freely.

He is not bound to some external law of love or justice or grace. Nothing external to Him that binds Him. There is not some deep magic above God that guides the world that holds

His hand to the fire. The end of all the why questions eventually ends at a free

Creator God who tells us, even in the very stern book of Hosea, that once His anger is spent,

His free love is exercised toward His people. That's good news, church. That's really, really, really good news.

And in this free love, He blesses His people with Himself. I want you to look at it.

He is the dew that brings forth the beauty of His people like the blossoming lilies. Everything turns poetic after His anger is turned.

Everything turns into kind of ooshy -gooshy, lovey -dovey words. Why? Because that's where the love comes in.

His anger is spent. Now His free love. And it almost turns into some imagery that we find in the song of songs is found here.

His people like blossoming lilies. The lily of the valley at my house right now is about to pop. As a matter of fact, some of it's already.

You drive up my driveway, and there's lily of the valley all along the side of my driveway. Any of you have lily of the valley? And it smells really great right now.

And it's coming out. Beauty, beauty, beauty in the spring. He will establish

His people with strength like roots of the great trees of Lebanon.

Is your God your beauty and strength recast? If you are living in His love, if you are returning to Him in rejection of sin, and you are in relationship with Him, bringing your words to Him regularly, you know the beauty and strength

Hosea is referring to here in verse 5. I believe that when verse 6 speaks of the branching out of new shoots from all of this agricultural metaphor of fruit trees, new shoots, it's emphasizing the spread of His love through His people.

His love is not to end with Israel. It is not static. It is not stagnant. It does not end with us.

It's not meant to end with the people of that generation. It didn't end with the apostles. But the shoots continue to spread out, leading all the way to the vision of a massive people of God before His throne in the book of Revelation.

People from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. This will keep spreading, church.

And we get to be a part of it. We're privileged to be a part of the spread of God's love and calling people, return to your

God. Return to your Creator. And His people will be beautiful like an olive tree and fragrant like the cedars of Lebanon.

Now I imagine that might not look like the most beautiful of trees. And you're like, oh, that's kind of light. Not that inspiring.

Unless you lived in that time and that era with wilderness and desert all around. And all of a sudden you get an olive tree where you get fruit and you get oil.

And so much of their sustenance comes from this one tree during this time. And this is significant and substantial.

And the beauty of having a flourishing olive tree and fragrant like the cedars of Lebanon.

This is interesting. We were just walking out of Portman Nature Preserve this past... What day was that?

Friday. Friday we were out. And we found a tree that was cut down. And it was a cedar. And my daughter was super excited.

Because you can smell the cedar. And it's like, that's the fragrance of Lebanon. The fragrance of cedar.

You guys know what I'm talking about? To me it smells like hamster. Do you guys know what I'm talking about?

Anybody smell cedar and you think hamster? I had hamsters growing up. And it's like, okay, but it's not as bad as hamster.

Because you know what I'm talking about. But that was not in my notes. The images here

I mentioned already border on the poetry of Song of Songs. God refers to his people in the New Testament as a bride.

That he finds us beautiful. That he finds us strong. That he finds us worthy of his love. It's about him and not about us.

It's about him and not about us that he finds us lovely. That's on him. He has no option but to marry down.

Okay, you get that? He has no option but to marry down. And he did so like Hosea who was called to marry a whore.

That's his options. Marry whores like us or don't get married.

Love whores like us or don't love anyone. Now, God doesn't have beer goggles on.

Some of you get it. My wife wasn't sure that any of you were going to get it. She didn't, fortunately.

He spent this entire book acknowledging the warts. Acknowledging the disfigurement and the faithlessness of his people.

He knows you with your sins and your lies and your weakness and your hostilities.

And he loves you when you return to him, amen? That's our God. That's what

Hosea has been building toward all of this time. His great and awesome love for broken sinners like you and me.

Both sinned deeply against in this world and sinners against others deeply as well, right?

We know that we're recipients of great sin and we dole out great sin. And all he's asking from us, church, all he is asking from you and me is that we return.

He'll take it from there. Come back. Trust me. Reject those other gods and he will dust us off and make us strong.

Verse 7 gives a very optimistic twist here at the end of the book. So far in the text we've seen a command to return and we've seen what

God will do if his people return to him. But verse 7 tells us, in fact, his people will indeed return.

That's true of his people. If you are his, you will return to him. That's a fact.

It may not always seem like it, but that's the hope of the Christian. That's the hope of the person who is genuinely connected to Christ as he will keep drawing you back.

They shall return. And while this has meaning historically for the nation of Israel in context, they will indeed return to the land out of exile.

But this also points far future from Hosea's times as many of God's people, many, particularly

Israelites, will return to God by turning to their Messiah in the New Testament times. And we're also told in the book of Revelation in the end times, many

Jews coming back. But now eternity under our king's righteous rule and reign begins to melt together with hopes that we now possess through Christ in the here and now.

His people will dwell beneath his shadow. Meaning his people will dwell under his divine protection.

Are you there? Have you felt it? Do you know it? Do you sense his wrath and his anger against your sin appeased, propitiated, removed from you under his divine umbrella of protection?

No longer is his righteous wrath raining down on you, but Christ has put up that umbrella between you and the

Father and he's absorbed that himself. His people will flourish like grain, meaning we will have all of our needs met.

We shall blossom like the vine promising productivity and usefulness for his people. Our fame will be like the wine of Lebanon, meaning that we will be what we were meant to be, an instrument of celebration and joy.

By the way, the way that I was raised was to always think of alcohol and wine in the negative in Scripture, but here it's actually spelled out as a positive.

Wine is frequently used as a positive way in Scripture to convey jubilation and gladness.

But consider for just a moment your life right now, where you live. Are you bogged down in idolatry?

You might immediately think, of course not, Don. I don't even have any little gold statues at my house. But this passage is about a life that is returned to God and we all need returns.

Verse 8 gives us a summary to consider. God will not be associated with any of your idols. What do

I have to do with your idols? God is not into blessing your worship of money. He isn't into your worship of pleasure, your worship of appearance or status or entertainment.

What does He have to do with any of those other things you are tempted to worship? Go straight to the truth and look at the end of verse 8.

Your fruit, church, the good blessings of your life come from God.

He is the one who answers your prayers. He is the one who looks after you. Not your bank account.

That's not what's looking out for you. It has no interest in you. It's an inanimate thing.

Netflix isn't taking care of you. Your sexual addiction isn't taking care of you. None of those things will solve or only coming back to God results in good in your life.

Recast, where do you go when things are not well with your soul? If we're honest, many of us numb ourselves.

We numb ourselves with entertainment, some with alcohol, some with other things that we think grant us control.

Really, when we get down to the core of our beings, the vast majority of us are after control.

That really is what it comes down to. Control like work or gossip or food or porn or gambling. Some are even starting to lean into some things.

I'm starting to hear it more. Fortune telling and an increased number of people are getting into crystals and dark things like spiritism and tarot cards and seances and speaking with the dead.

These things are on the rise in our culture and I'm hearing more and more about it. And it's because,

I think, I think it's primarily because we're kind of worn out on materialism. Like our culture is worn out on it.

It's not all science. It's not all the material stuff. There's more than can be tested in a test tube, right?

There's more than what happens in the science lab going on here. How many, raise your hand, would say that's true?

And people are seeing it. And so many people are both believing that there's more to this life than material existence and they are seeking to experientially connect with the other side.

I think we're at a dangerous point in our history, church. Note in this passage the very straightforwardness of a life -giving return to the

Lord. It's not flash, it's not glitz, it's not glamour. It's not full of power and control that can be at your fingertips.

The ability to manipulate the spiritual realm for your own fix. That's what

God is saving His people from attempting to do in the book of Hosea. They had all their idols. They had all their things that they could try to do.

They were bringing their sacrifices. They were doing their stuff. No, what we need, we need to return bringing words of confession and bringing relational words of declared adoration and obedience to God and rejection of the idols of our lives.

And that honestly looks less sexy than the allure of ecstatic experiences in the spirit realm.

That's got some appeal right now. And so we need this final encouragement in verse 9.

Why listen? Why listen to Hosea? The last verse is a capstone.

It's literally editorial. It's editorial in its nature. It's likely written still.

There's all kinds of hallmarks. It's Hosea writing it from the terms that are used there. But it's editorial in that he's actually talking to the reader.

He is most directly in this verse talking to you. The gap between what he's trying to say and the reader has grown so thin that he is talking to you almost by name because you have read this book now.

You have heard it. Now he's talking to you. And he says to the reader, directly to us, if you want to be wise, then study it to understand the things that are written here.

If you are a discerning person, he's asking you, are you a discerning person? Are you a wise person?

Then become intimately acquainted with the things found in this book. That might mean going back over your notes.

I don't know. That might require you to do some things to dig in deeper to Hosea. But here's what he says.

He says, here's what I'm getting at. God's ways are righteous and just. And some of you, at times during this series in Hosea, have been tempted to consider

God as unjust, unkind, not quite so good were he to judge his people in this way or this way or this way.

But the just ones will walk in his ways and come to understand his goodness and his mercy.

The pathway is lit for the one who is made righteous. We who are granted the righteousness of Christ have eyes to see the lit path before us while the blinded walk that exact same path and stumble.

Why do they stumble? Why can they not stay on the narrow path of honoring God? Because they have no sight.

And no matter how many lamps are lit along the way, they stumble while the one made righteous has

God -opened eyes to both behold the light and keep coming back to the straight path.

And that's my prayer for all of us. The righteous keep returning while the transgressors run off into the night, away from the path, away from their

God. I love this ending to this really tough book. All of us have run against God.

And for some it's short and we returned quickly. For some it might be defined by long seasons of life, snubbing our nose at him and rejecting him for our own way.

For others here, you may never have returned to your creator. You're still wandering away in the distance and you've never come to him.

But the pathway back for every single one of us, regardless of where you identify yourself this morning, the pathway back is the same exact path for all.

Return to him and bring with you words, words asking him to take away your sin, words asking him to accept your humility, faith and contrition, and then speak words of confession.

Verbally communicate to him what you desire to give and what you desire to drop out of your life for him.

And he pledges to heal your apostasy. He will in Christ turn away his anger from you and he will love you freely.

He pledges to be like the dew, to bring you to beauty and strength. He will incorporate you into this broad, growing community of faith, stretching down through the generations.

Church, return to him. Return to him. Return to him if you notice small ways that you have wandered, which can be said of all of us.

Return to him if you have wandered far afield into various sins and addictions. Return to him if you are just now realizing his rightful call to rescue you.

And the basis of our return is much more clear in Matawan, Michigan in 2025 than it was in ancient

Israel in 720 BC when he was writing these things. Because we celebrate each

Sunday what we know to be the basis of our forgiveness and the appeasing, the propitiation of his righteous wrath towards us.

We know where that happened. We know how that happened. The cross up here on this wall has been following us everywhere we've met.

It was originally mounted on the wall of the storefront 16 years ago. It was set up and torn down every week.

We actually even built a stand for it so that we could stand up on the stage in the elementary school.

And when God sees fit to bless us with the resources to expand this space and get back to one service, it will be moved to the same place of prominence just a few dozen feet back.

And we can all be in one service again. But it stands not as something we worship, not an object of worship, but a faithful reminder.

The body of Christ was broken for our sins. The blood of Jesus was shed to atone for our iniquities.

How can you return with confidence that he will take you back? Look at his great love in pursuing you in the first place.

His love is free to anyone who accepts his anger -turning, wrath -enduring sacrifice for them.

So let every week be a return of sorts. Every week a return. Even this morning as Dave and the band come up to play this next song, take a moment to return today.

Return every day, but especially as we come to communion. Bring to him your words this morning.

Your actions, by the way, can never be enough. And that sounds strange. You might think I got that backwards. No, God wants us to act in a certain way and do the right things.

And that's true, but only after you come to him with words, your actions alone will only show that you still think it's up to you.

Your actions alone will show you to be a hypocrite like me because your actions won't match his law.

Your actions betray you because we need healing from our apostasy. We need healing from our routine of walking away from him.

Right? So come to him this morning with words of apology. With words of request, take away my iniquity.

Come with words of surrender. My efforts cannot rescue me. And then come receive.

Receive what was freely given. The cracker representing his body broken for us. The cup of juice representing his blood shed for you and me.

And then let's go out from here with a deeper commitment to a life of returning. You will stumble in your iniquity again.

You will. But a good life of beauty and strength with the Lord is a life committed to continual returning.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you that you have made a pathway for us to return.

That you have demonstrated over and over again through parables and through the end of Hosea and a variety of passages.

And you've gone over the top to communicate to us that any sinner who turns to you in repentance will be accepted.

No matter what the history. No matter what the story. No matter how far we've wandered. All we have to do is turn around and you will embrace us.

If we would ask you to cleanse our iniquities on the basis of what Christ did on the cross. And we will forego those things.

Reject those things that have grasped our lives. Father, I pray that even now you would be doing business with our hearts.

I know that all of us are tempted in many ways. And all of us have those specific things that draw us in.

I pray that even now might be a time of doing business with you and saying, we reject those things. And we want to follow you wholeheartedly today.

Father, I thank you for the reminder that we have in the cracker and the juice to remember the great sacrifice that was made to turn your anger away from your people and bring us freely into your love.

And Father, I pray that that would produce within us joy and gladness and a doubled down commitment to want to honor you and love you in return.

I pray that a life of loving obedience to you would be the result of this message. Not anybody feeling like they've just got to go fix themselves.

But a recognition that what you have done for us is first. And lovingly living for you would be the result.