Hosea: The Heartbreak of God

Preacher: Thobezweni Sithole

Scripture: Hosea 7: 8-16

Transcript

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Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not. Grey hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not. The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all goodness. Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense. Calling to Egypt, going to Assyria. As they go, I will spread over them my net. I will bring them down like birds of the heavens. I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation. Woe to them, for they have strayed from me. Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me. I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me. They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds. For grain and wine they gash themselves, they rebel against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. They return, but not upward. They are like a treacherous bull. Their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. This is God's word. Let me pray for us. Thank you, Lord, for your church. Thank you, Lord, that we get to say Malibongekamalako. The same breath, we get to praise your name. We get to have our souls, Lord, bless your name. And Lord, thank you that we are no longer slaves to sin. By your grace, Lord, we are your children. And Lord, as we open your word this morning, would you help us, would you form us, would you encourage us? Would you convict us of our sin? And Lord, I do pray for those this morning who are skeptical, who are doubting, are not even sure about this Christian thing. Lord, it is by the power of your spirit that you change hearts. Change hearts of stone and give them affections for you. It is your gift, Lord, that we get to praise you. None of what you've done this morning, Lord, comes innately from ourselves. It is a gift from you. And in it, Lord, we find joy, we find wholeness, we find freedom. And so, Lord, I pray through the preaching of your word this morning that you may draw people to yourself. Those who are far. Would you kindle in them, Lord? A heart for you. And those who are near, Lord, would you revive them? In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen. Like I said, I have an ad break. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 2, verse 1, uh specifically speaks about why am I saying chapter 2, verse 1? Yes, it's the first chapter or the first paragraph of the second chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Kind of gives us a sense of who God is. And it says these words. It says, God is without body, parts, or passions. Meaning, friends, he is not subject to involuntary emotional fluctuations like we are. So as we think about the title, uh, The Heartbreak of God, it sounds like, man, uh maybe you saw that on YouTube or you saw that somewhere online and you're like, yo, God, God's heartbreak, I want to go to that church. Uh basically, friends, what we did there, we did what people call like, I don't know, when you put a clickbait, yes. We clickbaited you to coming to church. But the the point here, friends, is that as we're going to uh go into that idea of um the heartbreak of God, I don't want you to think of it in that sense that um God has a body or uh has in a sense involuntary fluctuations of emotions. In other words, God is not, friends, on an emotional frenzy or an emotional roller coaster. Do you get what I mean, friends? The idea here is that um he is grieved in relation to the covenant, in his covenant dealings, in his dealings with his people. There's a sense in which uh when his love has been rejected, this is his response, this is his uh response. And John Calvin speaks about the idea of God lisping. In other words, the baby talk of God. You know, like when you speak to a baby, you speak baby language to relate to the child. So every time the Bible speaks about God being grieved, God kind of like being betrayed as a husband and him uh mourning and grieving, and uh an idea of God having a heartbreak. It's it's for us to understand in relation to the covenant and our covenant relationship to him how he feels. It's God's baby talk, as it were, for us creatures to uh fathom what he's dealing with are in relation to us breaking his covenant. In other words, friends, truly, truly that the Bible does reveal then that God is loving, God rejoices, God grieves. It kind of shows us a sense of God's compassion and emotions, right? But in light of the fact that God is immutable, in other words, he's unchanging, his emotions are consistent with his character. So as we like think about it in this sense, friends, that um the emotional attributes that are attributed to God or affections um are a sense an accommodating language of God. God is accommodating us in how we relate to him. In other words, then, friends, God cannot be emotionally manipulated. That's something we'll see in the text where there's a sense in which there's a wailing that is happening but on pillows, you know. There's a sense in which there's a sense of like a brokenness that is trying to like uh manipulate God. There's a sense of we call it a false repentance. I just need to sob long enough. I just need to cry long enough. Maybe then God will change my situation, but they're not sobbing for God, they're sobbing for wine and grain. So, friends, we're gonna realize that nothing outside of himself forces him into a new emotional state. Nothing outside of God forces him into a new emotional state. So, friends, this idea of God's breaking heart is God's disposition towards us as his creatures in a language that we can understand. That's my advertisement for Theology Tuesday. It starts at uh half past six, and you'll get a link on the community. Join us as we journey through Theology Tuesday. But for today's sermon, basically, here's my point uh there's a saying or a phrase that I grew up hearing uh in in church spaces. For those of you who have never grown in church, maybe this will shock you. Someone uh or in a context where you grow up and people are praying out loud and we are praying together, which is wonderful and beautiful, you'd hear phrases like, Lord, break my heart for things that break yours. I'm sure some of you have heard that prayer for before. It's it's beautiful, right? Lord, break my heart for things that break yours. The first time I heard that, I was like, What do you mean? What do you mean, Lord? Break my heart for things that break yours. Does God have a broken heart? I mean, I love the phrase, but it it kind of assumes a couple of things. Number one, it assumes that, friends, this very hard question that we need to answer, which is what does break God's heart? It kind of probes in this how can I have a broken heart for things that break God's heart if I don't know what actually breaks God's heart? Maybe some of you would answer that question and say, Ah, dear, sin. Sin breaks God's heart. Rule breaking breaks God's heart. After all, God is holy and we are transgressors, right? Maybe his heart is broken in the way that a judge is broken when he sentences a young boy for a crime, and he feels like, man, it's just a societal injustice that has happened to this, his circumstances happened to him, and and I kind of like feel like, man, he's broken the rules, but I'm I'm sad for the verdict that I'm about to give. That um I I don't have to give this verdict as a judge, but uh he has to answer for his wrongs. Perhaps we have a framework of God being that judge. But friends, although these answers that I've just mentioned are true, God's grief, friends, is far more deeper. It's deeper than how you treat the breaking of regulations. His grief, friends, is a grief that speaks about a broken relationship. And friends, why is this the case, friends, that most of us instinctively go to the courtroom, go to the when we say, God, break break my heart for the things that break yours, and when you go to regulations, is it and you go to sin and you go to the rules, we go to the picture of the courtroom, uh, to a judge, to a verdict, to a broken law. And and friends, the reason why you go there is because naturally we are the best senior advocates, senior counsels. Maybe let me explain that. Our inner lawyers, as Paul Triple speaks about that, we have a tendency to justify our rule breaking with our inner lawyer, right? That that man, I broke this rule and I can answer for this. I could justify why I broke these rules. I can give many reasons for why I broke this rule, but but it's very seldom that we ask ourselves of the reasons why you break God's heart. And friends, as Hosea preaches here, he's inviting us into a grief of a husband whose covenant love has been rejected. Hosea doesn't replace the courtroom with the home, as it were. He actually shows us why the courtroom exists. In other words, friends, God's law was never detached from his covenant love. Israel's sin is legal. Um is it's legal because, friends, that sin is relational first. The primary breaking first is the breaking of a relationship. Before we talk about rules, we need to talk about relationship. Are you with me, friends? That that most of us in this room do have a sense of identifying with a broken heart. Perhaps you have broken a heart or had your heart broken, and then you lament with Adele and Amy Winehouse and all of those people. Perhaps you've broken a heart of your parent. Disappointed your parent, a friend, a spouse. In other words, friends, we know what it feels like to be in grief because of someone who's caused us pain. Someone we love. We know what it feels like, friends, to to to be the reason for someone else's grief. Have you ever actually wondered, friends, can we grieve God's heart? Can we break God's heart? Does the God who set the humanity into existence, who set the galaxy, who created all things, who who knows all things, can can do have the capacity to wound him. Again, friends, I wanna say that this text is gonna show us a baby talk of a covenant relationship that has been betrayed by us. And and friends, this is not a churchy question. It's it's a very human one. And most of us in this room can answer yes. Then we need to come to this point, friends, and really ask ourselves what kind of God is this? That whose heart gets broken over our unfaithfulness. What kind of God is this that who laments? As verses 13 to 18 show us. What kind of God is this, friends? We know the state of our hearts being broken by people and us breaking hearts, but what kind of God is this who laments our breaking of his heart? And friends, the Bible doesn't leave us hanging here. Jesus Himself kind of describes his own heart in this sense. He says, I am gentle and lowly in heart. That's that's Matthew 11, verse 29. Out of everywhere, like uh Dan Otland makes his observation that his father made, who had heard a sermon somewhere, that gentle and lowly is not one way Jesus occasionally adds towards others. It is who he is, it is his very heart. So, friends, underneath every verse this morning, we're gonna unpack what it really means to break God's heart. And even deeper still, friends, you're gonna fathom and wrestle with the question, what kind of God keeps loving people who keep breaking his heart? And and Josea will give us three answers. I did I did kind of write something down here that um kind of summarizes this point for me that in light of his unchanging character, God's covenantal dealings with us are consistent. In other words, God truly loves his covenant people and their rebellion truly provokes holy grief that is consistent with who he is as an unchanging God. In other words, friends, we really need to see what it means then to say, man, how does it look like for us to break God's heart and repent. So there are three things that we're gonna look at this morning. Number one, we're gonna look at the fact that we break God's heart by losing sight of him. Number two, we're gonna see that we break God's heart by looking to other saviors, and lastly, we're gonna see we break God's heart by wanting his gifts more than we want him. Let's look at it. Point number one, we break God's heart by losing sight of him. Look at it in verse 8 to verse 10. Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength and he knows it not. Gray hairs are sprinkled upon him and he knows it not. He knows it not. We break God's heart by losing sight of him. In other words, Hosea's sermon is taking us back to the kitchen again. Last week we're looking at the fact that uh we in verse 8 were saying that we are like an oven. Um, uh, in other words, we're kind of painting the picture of innate sin. That we it's a it's an oven that does not need to be fueled by more wood and by more fire. It keeps burning like we have a natural bent to break God's heart. We are enslaved to this natural original sin like Adam to break God's heart. But today, friends, he he goes back into the kitchen again and he says, You are like a half-baked cake. Do you see it, friends? Yeah, you you're like a flatbread left too long on the coals, burnt on one side and raw on another. It's like a pancake that has never been turned. So one side is burnt, the other side is just like it hasn't, nothing has happened to it, friends. That's the image of flatbread that is left too long on coal, to burn on one side and to be uh uncooked or unbaked on the other. So these are not two problems, friends. This is one loaf, this is one pancake, it's useless for either purpose. You can't do anything with it. What's this image going to, friends? The the image here is this that Israel has been mixing. Do you see it? Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples. Do you see it, friends? Has has been mixing so thoroughly into the surrounding nations that it was too pagan to be holy. Right? It was too pagan to be what? To be holy. It's Ephraim is a cake not turned. The other side of the cake is this, friends, it was too self-consciously Yahweh's people. In other words, they were consciously making participants in religion. Participants in the sacrificial system. So one side of the cake is like, man, it's burnt, you can't do anything with it, but the other side is like, man, there's nothing happening there. They were too unholy to be uh seen as God's people or seen as separate for God, but they were too self-consciously self-righteous to be uh or to fit in comfortably in paganism. They were cooked and at the same time raw. I know you like this idea or this phrase, these are half-baked ideas. What am I gonna do with this? To use a very punchy word is that at this moment at this juncture Israel is useless. Useless. Half-baked faith is one that wants enough of Christ to feel religious, but enough of the world to feel comfortable. The church in Laodessia. Neither hot nor cold, lukewarm. And uh the conclusion here is that this is useless. Half-bed Christianity, friends, is too worldly to be holy and too religious to enjoy the world it keeps chasing. You you are too you are you are too you know in other words, you are too worldly to be to be holy. In other words, you you you don't fit in anywhere. You but but the the worldliness you are chasing after, you you you are too religious to enjoy it. That's that's the conclusion here, friends. They've lost sight of God. Look at verse 9 quickly. Strangers devour his strength and he knows it not. This should stop us in our tracks, friends. Strangers devour strength and he does not know it. Gray hairs are sprinkled upon him and he does not know it. Grey hairs could appear as wisdom, but here, friends, gray hairs appear as frailing. Grey hairs is appearing as a losing of strength. And think about it here, friends, that they keep kind of being self-delusioned by the fact that they have strength, but they don't have it. And here's something to think about, friends. Why is it that the people closest to us often notice our spiritual drift before we do? Why is it easier to see pride in a friend than in ourselves? Why can a marriage slowly cool, a prayer life slowly disappear, a heart slowly harden without us noticing until someone else finally says, You have changed. Friends, this this nation is not a nation that that is uh collapsing dramatically. It's a nation that is aging. The gray hairs are appearing and the gray hairs are being denied. It's like looking at yourself, graying, your beard is graying, and you're like, no, no, I'm still a young lion. But but you are aging. You you are aging. The mirror you look at every day is telling. You men perhaps perhaps there's good lighting. Uh, you you you you you you delusion you you you deceive yourself and say maybe maybe it's the good lighting. This is not great, I'm I'm still fine. Friends, that's the deceitfulness of sin. It does not make us defiant, but it makes us blind. It doesn't just corrupt what we do, it corrupts our ability to notice what we are becoming. Many have described this, friends, uh, as practical atheism. Author by the name of David F. Wells made that point, friends. Basically believing the doctrine on Sunday while your budget, your worry, and your decisions on Monday run exactly as though God is really in the room. The feasts are still happening, the religious practices are still being offered, and underneath it, friends, a nation is quietly dying, and they are calling it normal. They are okay. And friends, verse 10, people rush through this. The pride of Israel testifies to his face, yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. It's not saying they couldn't return. It's saying they refuse to return. The pride, they are they are prideful, they refuse, they do not return. Every gray hair was a mercy. Every gray hair was a mercy in its way, friends. Evidence God hadn't let their decline stay completely invisible. But pride kept interpreting the knock that the knock of God uh as anything else but an invitation to home. And friends, none of us are exempt from that drift. We are very good at managing, as it were, appearances. In other words, managing the appearance of life, um then examining its substance. In other words, what we're saying is that we we I use the language of a spiritual Botox. Do you know what a Botox is? We become experts at hiding the signs of decline rather than dealing with the cause. We want to kind of um manicure our brokenness rather than facing and dealing with it. And friends, sadly, no matter how much we mask our dyed gray hair, we must see that nobody's collapse looks dramatic from the inside. It actually looks like a full calendar and nothing on fire. While that the the hair is graying, while you're losing strength unnoticed, the sin is so deceptive that you can't even notice that you are graying, you can't even notice that you are losing strength. You you keep deceiving yourself to saying, man, I'm I'm okay, I'm fine. But the greatest danger, friends, is not that you have wandered from Christ, it's that you no longer realize that you have. You have lost sight of him. And friends, that breaks God's heart. That breaks God's heart. Number two, friends, we break God's heart by looking to other saviors. We break God's heart by what? By looking to other saviors. If verse 10 is basically a diagnosis, um, verse 11 is is kind of like the symptom in motion. Like it's telling us what what stems out of that diagnosis. Ephraim is like a dove. Oh, be wise as a dove. But but the the the that's not what it's saying here, or be innocent as a dove. No. Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense. Calling to Egypt, going to Assyria. Ephraim is not becoming like a lion, it's not becoming like a fox or a snake or cunning. It's it's becoming like a what? A dove. Silly, easily startled, easily, easily lured, flapping its wings between two masters. Uh it's a picture of man. Think about a picture of uh I don't hunt, but a picture of like throwing stones. You throw stones to a dove, or you you you try to shoot at a dove. Uh there were guys who used to hunt doves that didn't get them, but but but the picture is people are hunting ducks, they want to call not ducks, doves. They want to collect them, but one like tries to shoot the dove from one angle, and then the other guys go to the other angle. The dove keeps flying this way to avoid the stone and goes to the other end to avoid the stone. But kind of like you throw the stone this way, you throw the stone that way, it keeps going back and forth. What is it doing? It's it's becoming silly. What was Israel or Ephraim doing? They were moving from one allegiance to another. Their kings were moving from Assyrian kings to uh trying to find allegiance and paying homage to Egypt as well. They were not returning to God. They were looking for other saviors. They lost sight of God but had sight of other saviors. They were paying tribute to Assyria for it one decade and in courtship with Egypt in another. In other words, friends, instead of trusting God who had delivered them from their first kind of deliverance in Egypt, they go back to the very enemy who enslaved them. They are, in the language of politics and ANC and all these other parties. I'm sorry to mention ANC, but all these other parties, they are flip-floppers. Have you seen a political leader who every election has a different t-shirt? What are they doing? They are flip-flopping. Some people flip-flop on issues. The whole point is this, friends, that uh they are like these doves. Silly and without sense. Friends, false saviors also appear as wise, but obviously they are sinful because they want to capture us. Nobody in Israel's government thought of this, these alliances as betraying God. It was actually their foreign policy. It was it was prudent, it was wise, it was smart. It's it's exactly how sin works, friends. We can rationalize our allegiance to the very things that break us. And friends, it really arrives to us as temptation. It arrives dressed in good sense. Man, this is logical, this is rational. Let me go for it. Let me cut on my taxes here. Let me do this, let me evade this, let me let me compromise here. Let me let me let me let me negotiate a deal with this person who I know is gonna throw us in the rut. Because it makes sense, it makes financial sense. You you make the calculation, you make the scenario planning, and and you go for compromise. How silly are we, friends? Our own Egypt and Assyria really looks like sin. The property that will finally make us feel secure, the relationship that will finally make us feel chosen. None of these things, friends, appear to us as evil. They appear to us as sensible. But in the long run, they become Egypt. And friends, they become Egypt only when we lose them when we feel like we're losing ourselves. Again, I've quoted this many times. The human heart is a perpetual factory of idols. That's our band, friends. We keep manufacturing new gods. Perhaps at one point it was pleasure, self-gratification, comfort. At another point it's control. At another point, it's it's it's it's it's power. There's always something that wants to say, look, I can save you. And friends, these things are produced in us automatically. They are idle factories. Look at verse 13 quickly. Woe to them, for they have strayed from me. Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me. Do you notice what God is saying here? It doesn't begin with they lied. It says, Woe to them, for they have strayed from me. Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me. I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me. He doesn't begin with the idea of men of they wandered. He doesn't begin with they betrayed me. It begins somewhere else. He begins with the fact that I redeemed them. Before he tells us what they did, he reminds us of what he has done. That's the emphasis of that text. I redeemed them. That's God's heart, friends. Sitting right in the middle of this text is is is this point, friends. God is saying, I redeemed them. The God who brought Israel out of Egypt, out of slavery, with his own outstretched arm, watched the same people flutter back toward Egypt. That's the point here, friends, that even in this context, his own first instinct before naming the lie, he names his redemption. It's always been the case, even the structure of Exodus, friends, Exodus 20. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God who redeemed you. And then he gives us the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. That's God's heart, friends. But we keep looking to other saviors, and that's what breaks God's heart, friends. We look to other saviors. The tragedy of idolatry is not simply that we choose another God, but that we forget that God who has already redeemed us. This is what breaks God's heart in this context, friends, that we are looking to other saviors and yet God has already saved us. Point number three, friends. We break God's heart by wanting his gifts more than him. The end of our drifting, friends, is that we break God's heart by wanting what? His gifts more than him. Maybe you are here this morning and you're like, yeah, I've cried many tears. I I've I've wept, I've sobbed, um, I've sobbed deeply so. Not not from the heart, but I've wailed on my bed because of my bank balance, of the loss of a job, of a breakup. Never mind, I'll find someone like you. Friends, Israel is is loud in her wailing. The eyes are wet. This is a physical demonstration of brokenness. They do not cry to me from the heart, but they are wailing upon their beds. They are wailing upon their beds. Friends, what is missing here is not emotion. What is missing here, friends, is actually direction toward God. They physically demonstrate a sense of brokenness, but it's not brokenness to God from the heart. It's brokenness. Why? Look at it quickly. They do not cry to me for the from the heart, but they wail upon their beds. Why? For the grain and wine, then gash themselves. It's for the bread and wine. The crying is is not directed to God, it's directed to their things. A sociologist uh and and uh again, sociological language uses that phrase of a therapeutic moralistic deism, which is what uh uh David F. Wells in the book Um The God in the Whirlwind uh makes an argument there. And I I wrote this idea that that the new type of religion that teenagers are prone to and many adults are prone to is this one that uh gives the idea of that God exists mainly to make us happy, solve our problems, and help us become better people. In other words, friends, God becomes a means to our happiness rather than the treasure of our hearts. Let me read that again, friends. The idea of therapeutic moralistic deism is basically an idea of viewing God as a genie, a means to our own end. They want God's help without wanting God. That's the paradox of the modern world, friends. The paradox of the modern world, uh, I quote David F. Wells here. He says, Never have we had more choices, more opportunities, more education, more technology, more comfort, or more wealth, yet never have anxiety been so common, lonely loneliness so widespread, relationships so fragile, or so many people quietly asking, Why am I still not happy? It's because, friends, we assume that if we kept receiving more gifts, eventually we would become more satisfied. But the more gifts we accumulate, the more we discover something unsettling. The human heart cannot be satisfied by gifts alone. Why are we obsessed with the gifts and not the giver? Hosea is saying that's the problem, friends. These people are obsessing over the grain and the wine. That's the very heart of their offense to Paul worship. They were looking for a fertility god who would uh make their wombs fertile, make their land fertile. And God says, You're not interested in me. You're interested in my hands. You're not interested in the in in the giver, you're interested more in the gifts. Thomas Watson, friends, gives this picture and gives us a vocabulary to say, man, the difference between a worldly sorrow, which is what they are doing here, which is why their uh faces are stuck in their pillows. The difference between that and a godly sorrow is this worldly sorrow grieves consequences. The crop failed, the wine ran out. But godly sorrow grieves the relationship itself. Israel wanted relief, they did not want reconciliation with God, they wanted him as provider and not as father. And friends, we do that. So obsessed with finding a husband. I know, I know some people like, ah, well, don't you realize my my longing? Doesn't sound cool to say Jesus is my husband. But friends, the point here is this that Jesus being your husband says that whoever becomes your husband later won't be the ultimate satisfier of your soul. In fact, it will relieve that poor guy from that pressure of living up to the point of satisfying your soul because they can't. It relieves you from the disappointment. Whoever that Jesus you are waiting for, who is not the Jesus of the Bible, will not save you. In fact, they'll probably disappoint you more than you you you you you you expect. Verse 15 God's own voice. Listen to it. It says, although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. I train them, I strengthen their arms, yet they devise what? Evil against me. And verse 16 names the whole passage. It says, They return but not upward. They are like treacherous bow. A deceitful bow. They do not turn, they are they are not they are they are motionless, as it were. Like a warped bow. In other words, they have a broken um weapon. That that that that as much as you want to shoot it won't go at the direction you are aiming at. Wow. They are like an arrow that that cannot go to where it's aiming. Talk about the Bible saying, man, you you are useless. You you you are silly. You don't have direction. Their hearts have become bent away from God. And that's the diagnosis, friends, that their bondage is is is moral before it's even mechanical in the sense that they have become the kind of people who no longer want God as God. Whether you point them the direction of God, they will always vie the other direction. And that breaks God's heart, friends. This is what breaks God's heart, friends. We want his gifts more than him. And the picture here is that real repentance, this crying is not real repentance, these emotions are not real repentance. Real repentance, friends, begins when we stop seeking God's hand and start delaying, delighting in his face. Have you had that posture of being obsessed with God's face, his presence. You see, friends, his people were obsessed with health. Some people are obsessed with success, some people are obsessed with provision, but but not obsessed with God Himself. Would you repent and be obsessed with God? And yet, this very God we are not obsessed with, yet this very God we view from. The God we've broken uh heart a heart of by losing sight of him, the God we were uh breaking his heart by looking to other saviors, the God we were breaking his heart by wanting his gifts more than him. Yet this God refuses to stop loving us. That's the gospel, friends. That's basically the climate of this message this morning. That um where does this leave us? If we've broken God's heart, where does it leave me? Perhaps you are here this morning and you're like, man, I I didn't know I'm half baked, let alone a silly dove flickering all over the place. I didn't know that my my bent was away from God like this bow that is useless, that cannot shoot at where it's being aimed at. I I I didn't know that about myself. I didn't even know that it's not even by choice. I do have human responsibility, but in a sense, my heart is bent innately away from God. Friends, if if Hosea is the whole story, then we are all doomed. Don't come back to saying, I wouldn't come to this church. But friends, here's the surprising truth here that that the greatest surprise in Hosea is this that yes, God gets angry. I mean, anyone would get angry at being betrayed. But that's not the surprise of the text, friends. It's this that the God whose heart they broke refused to break covenant, that that God refused to break covenant with them. That's the gospel, friends. That the very God whose heart they broke is the God who refuses to break covenant with them. The God whose heart they broke refused to break covenant with them. And one day he came himself. God's holiness would not ignore sin, yes. But God's love would not abandon sinners. The cross is where these two both meet. A God who won't ignore sin because he is the holy God, but also a God who won't abandon sinners. What does he do? He deals with that on the cross. Chasing the story, friends, is that the word became flesh and uh moved into the very exile Israel's unfaithfulness had earned. When Israel was called out of Egypt as God's Son and repelled at every turn, Jesus was called out of Egypt as the true son and was faithful at every turn, trusting the Father in the wilderness with the same offers of shortcut security that the devil threw at him. And yet Jesus, friends, was faithful, was holy, refusing every temptation. In other words, friends, as we move forward in his story, the covenant curse that Israel's treachery deserved, that God has uh clearly stated, the sword, the exile, the woe pronounced even in verse 13, fell on Jesus Christ on that cross. He was rejected by the very people whose rejection grieves him throughout this book. And he did not walk away from them. He said, Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do. He was rejected by the very people whose rejected whose rejection grieves him. He walked toward the cross for them. Remember that he said before he ever named their betrayal, I redeemed them. That's what God says in this text. I redeemed them. That's the same voice that says, Father, forgive them. And friends, the story does not end there. On the third day, he rose. He rose again. Proof that, friends, divine love is stronger than human rebellion, stronger than exile, stronger than the gray hairs of our own decay. And now, friends, his spirit does what Hosea's whole nation never managed. Turning warped hearts quietly, patiently until they finally bend toward home. In God, friends, we have the spirit who can take these stubborn hearts of ours and give us hearts that are bent toward him. That's the gospel promise, friends, that the cross is not God becoming loving. He was already this loving God, even in Hosea. Seven centuries earlier, friends, grieving over a people who ran away from him. But the cross is simply how far that same love was willing to go. The same Jesus who says, I am gentle and lowly in heart, is the one who stretched out his hands to all people who had spent their lives running from him. Hosela lets us hear the grief of God's heart. And friends, the gospel is this that it lets us see the heart walking among us. It lets us see the heart that is grieved over our own brokenness. It lets us see the heart that welcomes sinners home. It lets us see the heart that touched lepers, that touched unworthy, that the heart of Christ that wept over people who were broken. It sees our heart, friends, that goes all the way to the cross. So that you and I can come to Him. Let's go back to that prayer. Lord, break our hearts for things that break your heart. And and we can answer that question underneath that question. What actually breaks or grieves God, friends, mostly. What grieves God mostly, friends, isn't merely that sinners exist somewhere out there needing to be judged. It's that the people he has already redeemed keep looking for life everywhere except in him. Half beg, fluttering toward Egypt, wanting his gifts and not wanting him. This is what breaks God's heart. Yet this is the heart that refused to stop loving us. The God whose heart we have broken has not worked away from us. Maybe you are here this morning, and you want to really fathom that, friends. You need to understand that God is coming after you. Even in the preaching of his word, even in the cause to worship, God is calling you to himself. From the manger to the wilderness to the cross, out of the tomb. And he is still coming. And by his spirit, friends, into what wherever we are now, if our hearts were turned away from him, God is drawing us to himself through his spirit, through his word. My point is, friends, you are not too far gone for God. Christianity is not the story of people who are finally finding God, it is the story of the God whose heart we broke, refusing to stop pursuing us until he carried our sin to the cross and defeated our death in the empty tomb. That is the God of Hosea, friends. That is the God that we worship this morning. That says you do not need to repair yourself before you come to him. You do not need to uh uh in other words straighten this crooked bow and crooked affections before you seek him. You simply need to stop running away. Stop. Just stop. Because friends, Jesus Christ went further than you could ever go. He went further than you could ever go, further than you're running away from him. In other words, he dived straight into the pit of our brokenness and our mess and bore our sins. So so would you stop? Stop running. Would you would you come to him? Would you surrender? Would you come home? The God whose heart you have grieved is the God who has come looking for you in his son Jesus Christ. He's made a way. I lamented the fact that Jose has a tough book, but it's a beautiful story. A beautiful story of an unfaithful people who God never stops chasing. Because God, friends, is faithful to his own name, he's faithful to his covenant. That didn't change in in Samaria, that didn't change 2,000 years ago. It certainly hasn't changed today. The God whose love is relentless is still relentless to this day. Would you stop and come home? Would you surrender and say, Lord, you have made your way in your son Jesus Christ? I'm gonna stop chasing for significance in these things. And there's a sense in which, friends, it could be a half-baked idea if I said to you, look, stop being a half-baked cake. You can't stop in and of yourself. You need God's enablement, you need God's enabling grace. Say, Lord, would you make me over? Would you frame my desire to be bent towards you? I can't do it alone. I can't do it alone. I can't do it at all. I can't do it by myself. I I just can't do it in and of myself. I need you to help me. Perhaps you are here this morning and you're struggling with lust. You're struggling with things that break God's heart. Did I say the issue is not those things? The issue is, are you after God? Are you after God's heart? Are you after God relating with God? And having Him then mold you and deal with these things. God is not frightened by your brokenness. God is not icky about your sinfulness. Say, stop, let me embrace you. Let me make you over. We'll deal with these things one day at a time. But would you want me for me? Let me pray for us. Dear Lord, we are grateful that you have made a way.