Chapter three of Hosea. Hosea chapter three is
a very short chapter. And this is our third week
in the book of Hosea. And up till now, we've
learned that Hosea was a prophet to the nation
Israel. Hosea was probably somewhere around the
700s BC. And he was a prophet to the nation Israel
during a time of turmoil, especially spiritually.
The people had abandoned their love and their
faithfulness to God, and had instead chased after
idols, had chased after other gods, and had left
the God who brought them out of Egypt and gave
them a land in order to establish them as his
people so that he might rule and govern and love
them and lead them, and they might become a light
to the nations, a hope to the ends of the earth.
That was the plan. The plan has gone sideways.
And so Hosea is sent into that situation to begin
to speak to the people of Israel. And he's going
to take on a unique dimension in his prophecy,
because where other prophets might come in and
declare the word, thus saith the Lord, Hosea
is going to actually live it out. The Lord calls
him to live out the prophetic message to the
people of Israel, and specifically through his
marriage. And we learned in chapter one that
God came to Hosea and said, go and marry a woman.
We later find out her name is Gomer. Go and marry
a woman, a promiscuous woman, or in some translations,
a prostitute or a harlot, a woman who sleeps
around. Go and marry her and love her and take
her as your own because she represents the people
of Israel. and how they have been unfaithful
to their God. And Hosea gets to play the role
of God in the sense that he is going to love
her in spite of her unfaithfulness. And now,
a couple chapters later, we're in chapter three,
a really short one, only five verses. And we
get this message from the Lord. Then the Lord
said to Hosea, go again. Show love to a woman
who is loved by another man and is an adulteress.
Just as the Lord loves the Israelites though
they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes
anyone out there love raisin cakes talking to
you today Last week was figs and I told you if
you like fig newtons, you're weird today. It's
raisin cakes We might even we might even substitute
raisin cakes for raisin bread any of you guys
do raisin bread still ah I guess you could choose
to live that way if you want. But there is a
program for that, and I'll get you plugged in
afterward. All right. Jess says the Lord loves
the Israelites, though they turn to other gods
and love raisin cakes. I'll explain that in a
little bit. We'll just let that one linger for
a little bit. So I bought her, this is now Hosea
speaking, first person. So I bought her for 15
shekels of silver and nine bushels of barley.
I said to her, you are to live with me many days.
You must not be promiscuous or belong to any
man, and I will act the same toward you, for
the Israelites must live many days without king
or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar,
and without ifad or household idols. Afterward,
The people of Israel will return and seek the
Lord their God and David their King. They will
come with awe to the Lord and to his goodness
in the last days. This is God's word. So imagine
for a moment as we get started, it's the 13th
century and we're in the region of the Mediterranean
and coastal towns Along the Mediterranean are
living in constant fear of pirates raiding. North
African corsairs and Muslim raiders are prowling
the seas and they're capturing entire crews of
merchant ships and raiding small villages. They're
dragging men and women and children away in chains.
They're taken across the sea, across the Mediterranean
and sold in these bustling slave markets. Human
lives that are reduced to nothing more than a
number and a price. And now imagine you're at
one of those slave markets where there's the
buying and selling of humans and into one of
those markets walks a robed friar or priest.
And the white cross of his order is stitched
into his chest. He's a part of an order called
the Mercedarians. The Mercedarians were a Christian
order that were founded with one mission in mind.
They were going to ransom captives. And their
founder, Saint Peter Nolasco, he believed this
work reflected the very heart of Christ's mission
in this world to set captives free even if it
came at great personal cost. And so this priest
moves from stall to stall in this human marketplace,
speaking quietly to merchants, counting out coins
and striking deals. Each transaction that he
makes is a life, a father or a mother or a child,
pulled from slavery and restored to freedom.
But the ransom funds, as you can imagine, never
stretch far enough. Some years, the friars They
can't buy back everyone in the marketplace. And
when the silver runs out, guess what happens?
When the silver runs out and there's no money
to buy anymore, they fall back on their sworn
vow as a part of their order. Their unique vow
in this particular order was this, that they
will offer themselves in exchange for the prisoner.
that when money runs out, when they don't have
the coins to buy, they commit to offer their
life if they can free a captive. One friar might
walk away from a marketplace empty -handed, not
because he failed in his mission, but because
he is wearing the very chains of another, taking
that captive's place so the person could go free.
This is not a metaphor and this is not a made
-up story, but it was a very public and costly
act of redemption. The friars bore the humiliation.
They paid the price. They carried away the shame
that belonged to someone else. Where did they
learn this kind of love? In a world of taking
whatever is mine or whatever I can get my hands
on, where did these priests learn this kind of
love? Why were they so committed to setting captives
free? Well, they did it because they believed
this was exactly what Jesus had done for them
They were moved by Jesus redemption his salvation
and his freedom Now imagine that scene in picture
Hosea In Hosea chapter three, we watch God command
his prophet to step into his own kind of marketplace.
Gomer, his wife, isn't just to be forgiven, she's
to be bought back again. Hosea will bear the
shame, he will pay the price, and then he's going
to walk her into a season of restoration. It's
a living picture of what God has done for his
people and what Christ has done for us. And today
we're gonna walk through this short chapter in
five movements, the command to pursue the price
of redemption, the purpose of waiting, the promise
of restoration, and ultimately our response to
costly grace. And by the end, my prayer is that
you and I will not only understand God's love
more clearly, but you will feel the weight of
it and you will be moved to live in light of
it. So if you're taking notes, the first point
I'll have you write down is the command to love
the unlovely. Hosea chapter three opens with
this surprising and weighty command. Then the
Lord said to Hosea, go again and show love to
a woman who is loved by another man and is an
adulteress, just as the Lord loves the Israelites,
though they turn to other gods and love raisin
cakes. Notice that it begins with this one word,
again. Go again. This isn't Hosea's first act
of obedience like this. He's already felt the
sting of betrayal. He's already lived through
the pain of Gomer's unfaithfulness, and yet God
tells him to go again to her. She's run off.
She's with another man, and so Hosea's wife Gomer
is described in the present tense. She's actively
with another man now. She's actively living in
adultery. This is not a situation where repentance
has already taken place in her life. She hasn't
come to her senses. She hasn't turned her life
around, and still Hosea is told to go and pursue
her. And the heart of the command is this, go
and love right in the middle of unfaithfulness.
Now the reference to those raisin cakes, right?
I cannot, okay, I don't know why I'm doing this,
but we're going off the rails, someone get me
back on. Anyone know who Brian Regan is? Okay,
well, not enough of you know, so you won't know.
But there's a, if you ever come across Brian
Regan and his bit on grapes and raisins, you'll
be rolling in the aisles. I pull it up ever so
often just so I can not breathe for a while and
just laugh. Okay, we're gonna set that aside
though. The reference to raisin cakes. Raisin
cakes, this is just pointing to a cultural backdrop
of the moment right now. These sweet treats,
these raisin cakes, were often connected with
pagan worship. They were the offerings that were
brought to the worship festivals to pagan gods.
And what this means is Israel's unfaithfulness
wasn't just that they were drifting away slowly
from the Lord, but it was that they were actually
celebrating life with other gods. They were celebrating
their life with their idols while they're at
the same time turning their back on the Lord.
And see, God isn't asking Hosea to engage in
some mere sentimentality or some mere sentimental
affection for Gomer. But instead, he's being
commanded to move toward Gomer in her disobedience
with a deliberate covenantal choice to love the
one who has broken the covenant. If you're married,
that should be convicting. We oftentimes use
our marriage covenant, you know, as a 50 -50,
man, meet me halfway, right? What happens when
your spouse doesn't meet you halfway? Do you
move away or do you move toward? The love of
God as communicated in Hosea is to move toward,
to pursue. Oh, they're not holding up there into
the bargain. Move toward, pursue. Deliberate,
covenantal choice to love. To feel the weight
of this, we also have to understand what a covenant
actually meant in this time. A covenant was really
important. You could think of it as a contract,
but it was more than a contract. You know, even
in a marriage, you might have vows, right? But
oftentimes the vows is, I'll do this, I'll do
that, I'll do this, I'll do that. Not many of
our marriages nowadays say, and if I don't, you
can do this to me. Right? It's just I'll promise
to do that. You promise to do that. There's no
enforcement mechanism, especially in a world
where there's no fault divorce, right? You just
didn't work out. But to understand covenant in
their time is so much more than that, because
in the ancient Near East culture, a covenant
was sealed in blood. Now, not in your blood.
What you would do is each of the parties of the
covenant would sacrifice an animal. And they
would divide the animal into pieces and they
would lay it on altars on each side, right? So
you might imagine there's some altars or some
pillars here and you would lay them on this side
and on that side. And if I was one of the parties
and Adrian was the other party, I would walk
through the pillars between these animals on
each side first. I would walk through them and
I would say something to the effect of this.
If I could find it on the page, there it is.
I would say something like, may I become like
these animals if I break this covenant. May I
become like these animals who have shed their
blood, who are dead here on the side, if I break
the covenant. And once I've walked through, Adrian
will walk through and say the same thing. And
now our covenant is sealed. And so that's how
important covenant was in the Old Testament times.
But when we look at God's covenant with his people
Israel, we have to look all the way back to the
patriarch Abraham and to Genesis chapter 15,
where the covenant was sealed in this ceremony.
And it's the same ceremony it took place between
God and Abraham, a covenant. And yet there's
some important details that are different in
that story. Instead of God walking through in
some way through the alleyway, the pathway between
these animals, and then Abraham doing it, God
actually puts Abraham into his deep sleep. And
then Abraham has a vision. And what Abraham sees
in that vision is that a torch in a bucket, basically
a pail full of fire, floating, passing through
between those animals back and forth. And you
may not get the imagery, but it's something like
this. It was God's way of saying to Abraham,
I'm going to make a covenant with you. But I
take full responsibility of this covenant on
myself. I take full responsibility. When you
fail, I will remain faithful. When you fail,
I'll take the covenantial curse on myself in
your place. Some of you Jesus people are starting
to think things, right? Wait a sec. All the way
back in Genesis 15? When you fail, I will remain
faithful. And so when God comes to Hosea and
says, we're gonna go ahead and use marriage covenant
as an image so we can better understand this
relationship between me, God, and my people.
He uses this imagery of this relationship. And
yes, God wears a lot of hats, doesn't he? Is
God boss? Yeah, he's boss. Is he king? Yeah,
he's king. Is he landlord? Yeah, he's landlord.
Food supplier? Yep, he's that too. But you cannot
take all of those and set aside this one major
image that he puts throughout his whole word,
his whole revelation, and that is it's also like
a marriage. He's like a husband. He's like a
husband to an unfaithful wife. He's in a marriage
and it's a bad marriage. And it's a bad marriage
because his people are unfaithful. And yet he
remains faithful. Yet he will work it out. It's
his marriage. He took both sides of the covenant
on himself. And so as Hosea is called to love
Gomer, despite her betrayal, God continues to
love his people despite theirs. And even in his
discipline, that comes from a place of faithfulness
and affection for his people. God moves toward
the unworthy. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Thank you, Jesus. God moves toward the unworthy.
He shows love to those who haven't earned it,
those who could never repay it, those who even
might reject it. That's the way he loves. Number
two, the cost of redemption. Verse two brings
up the cost of Hosea's redemption of Gomer. And
it says, so I bought her for 15 shekels of silver
and nine bushels of barley. And so this scene
shifts away from the Lord's words to Hosea's
obedience. And the language here is the language
of the marketplace. Gomer is not simply coming
home to this time. She has to be purchased. The
cost that is listed is also telling, because
15 shekels of silver is only about half of the
typical price of a slave. And so Hosea has to
muster up the rest of the price in barley to
go all the way to get to the full value. And
the details suggest that Hosea may have had to
empty everything that he owned, the silver from
his purse and barley from his storehouses to
complete the transaction. It was a payment that
cost him in both wealth and pride. And this moment
makes the situation really clear. Gomer must
have fallen so far that she is in some kind of
bondage. Perhaps she's been sold into slavery.
or an indentured servitude because of an unpaid
debt, perhaps her pimp no longer has use for
her and has decided he's going to put her on
the open market. One thing is for sure, she is
no longer free to come and go. And her redemption
is not a matter of words, but a payment is required.
Hosea cannot simply ask for her back. He has
to pay the price to bring her home. I don't want
the weight of this scene to be missed. The prophet
of God walks into the marketplace not to purchase
an ox, not to buy a new plot of land, but to
buy back his unfaithful wife. Every coin that
is counted out, every measure of barley that
is handed over is an act of humiliation before
the watching eyes of the community. The whispers
that must have followed, isn't that the prophet
of God? And he's buying her back? In this, Hosea
not only shows the love that God has for his
people Israel, But Hosea begins to foreshadow
the heart of the very gospel of Jesus Christ
Redemption is never free friends Someone always
bears the cost Redemption is never free someone
always bears the cost And for Israel that cost
was born by God himself who repeatedly rescued
them from the sin their sin at great expense
But in the end God had a plan to rescue his people
and not only his people but anyone who might
put their trust in him They would be rescued
from slavery to sin and to death God had a plan
and still someone had to pay the price Redemption
is never free Someone always has to pay the price
and so God himself would pay the price in the
precious blood of Christ Peter wrote in first
Peter we just studied you were redeemed you were
redeemed from your empty way of life Handed down
to you by your forefathers not with the perishable
things like silver or gold but with the Imperishable
the precious blood of Christ You were bought
back you were in the marketplace you were unloved
You were put out hung out to dry and God Purchased
you with his blood. And Hosea's purchase of Gomer
shows us that love is more than words. It's a
willingness to bear the cost to set the beloved
free. Any marriage that has worked out knows
that full well, doesn't it? Every marriage that
has worked out, the parties have had to bear
the cost. to set the beloved free. There's always
a cost. And that's the nature of redemption.
It steps into the place of bondage. It meets
the terms of freedom. It pays what is required
without resentment. And when that redemption
is put on display like the gospel of Jesus Christ,
it speaks volumes about the Redeemer. It causes
us to erupt in worship and praise of Him. Songs
will be written and sung. about that kind of
redeemer. Friends, do you see this great love
of God who would rescue and save you at great
cost to himself? What has loving others cost
you? Hosea's act shows that true God -defined
love is always willing to pay the price. If you're
taking notes, write down Number three, the purpose
of waiting. After the purchase is made, Hosea
speaks to Gomer and says, I said to her, you
are to live with me many days. You must not be
promiscuous or belong to any man and I will act
the same way toward you. So now Hosea, he sets
the terms for this new chapter of their life.
She is to remain with him. But there will be
a period of waiting before marital intimacy is
restored between them. When it says, you must
not be promiscuous or belong to any man, and
I will act the same way towards you. That's Jose's
way of saying, we're going to enter into a time
in the covenant where we're going to remain together,
but we're not going to have marital intimacy
yet. There'll be a time. And this waiting period
is not punishment for punishment's sake. It is
purposeful. It's a time for rebuilding trust,
for healing what was broken, for reestablishing
covenantal faithfulness. The Lord uses Hosea's
actions to mirror his own dealings with Israel.
He will redeem his people, but he will also lead
them into a season where their idols are stripped
away from them, where they are removed from the
false loves that have led them astray, where
they learn to belong to him again. Restoration
is more than rescue. It's also reformation. And
right here, we should talk about the difference
between two kinds of graces, two types of grace.
One grace is cheap grace, and one grace is costly
grace. Cheap grace and costly grace. What is
cheap grace? Well, cheap grace is forgiveness
without change. Cheap grace is restoration of
relationship without repentance. Cheap grace
is love without transformation. It rushes past
the waiting because it doesn't want the discomfort
of reordering life around faithfulness. Cheap
grace treats sin lightly because it treats the
cross lightly. A cheap grace trivializes sin
because it treats sin as something that is small
and harmless or inconsequential rather than as
the deadly rebellion that sin is. When grace
is cheap, forgiveness becomes assumed rather
than cherished. Sin is acknowledged, but only
superficially, if at all, because the cost of
that forgiveness is ignored because that cost
of that forgiveness is not much. Instead of seeing
sin as an offense that required the death of
the Son of God, cheap grace treats it as a minor
flaw, just a minor character flaw. Maybe unwise,
maybe not good. That can be brushed away without
repentance, transformation or obedience. Dietrich
Bonhoeffer. In his book, The Cost of Discipleship,
wrote a chapter about cheap grace. And in that
he said, cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance. Cheap grace is
grace without the cross, grace without Jesus
Christ living and incarnate. It's not to offend
anyone who likes Oprah, but it's everyone gets
a car. Look under your seat, everyone gets a
right. Just take it. It's no big deal, it's everyone's.
True, costly grace exposes sin for what it really
is, spiritual treason. But then it magnifies
the cross as the only remedy. It says what sin
is. It doesn't minimize sin. It doesn't say,
sin, oh, that's not a big deal. We all sin. That's
no big deal, right? As if you and I are the measurement
of what is good. Instead of minimizing sin, We
say, yeah, sin is what sin is. Spiritual treason,
rebellion against God, our creator, to whom we
are all accountable. But you know what that does
when we call sin what it is? It makes the cross
all the more glorious. The remedy, the link to
which God would go to release us from that sin,
that debt becomes all the more glorious. Costly
grace tells us that God's grace is free, but
it came at the highest possible price. And to
receive it is to walk in newness of life, not
to return to the slavery that Christ died to
free us from. It is grace that rescues from the
pit and then teaches the rescued to walk in a
whole new way. Costly grace understands that
the waiting time is part of the healing. It insists
that restored relationship with God is not merely
a return to old patterns, but a new life lived
under the terms of the covenant. It costs God
the life of his son to redeem us. And what has
cost so much cannot be made cheap by us again.
This is why Hosea does not simply buy Gomer back
and return to life as if nothing happened. He
redeems her and then he sets the boundaries that
will guard and grow the relationship. It is the
same with God and his people. The season of waiting
is grace in action. It is the space where God
pulls us away from all of our false gods and
teaches our hearts to love him again. And for
us, this means we must be willing to embrace
the process of costly grace in our own discipleship,
in our own walk with Jesus. We cannot expect
instant maturity, instant intimacy with God,
or instant healing from sin's wounds. God in
his mercy will sometimes lead us through seasons
where the old loves are removed from our life,
where the easy comforts are stripped away. where
all we have is Him. And those seasons may feel
like exile, but they are actually preparation
for deeper, truer intimacy with God. I love this
quote by A .W. Tozer. It reminds me often of
God's timing. Go ahead and put it up there. God
never hurries. There are no deadlines against
which he must work. His only concern is the perfection
of your soul. Oh God, but I've been in this valley
of trouble for an hour. Get me out of here. But
I've been here a day. I've been here a week.
I've been here for three months. I've been here
for a decade. God, get me out of here. God never
hurries. You got no boss. No one laying down
deadlines for him. No. He'll take whatever time
it takes to perfect his character and his life
in you. So when God calls you into a time of
waiting, whether after failure or right in the
middle of a trial or simply a season of spiritual
dryness, I would encourage you to not despise
it. Waiting is where costly grace does its work.
It is in those many days that God is making you
His again. Number four. the picture of restoration.
The final two verses lift our eyes from Hosea's
home and his life and his marriage to God's larger
plan for salvation. It says that, for the Israelites
must live many days without king or prince, without
sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod
and household items. And afterward, the people
of Israel will return and seek the Lord their
God and David their king. They will come with
awe to the Lord and to his goodness in the last
days. And remember, he's talking about idolatrous,
unfaithful Israel here. And he's saying, there's
a day that's coming after the waiting period,
after the exile, when they will come and stand
in awe of the Lord and his goodness and seek
in return to David their king. And here the many
days for Hosea's personal life are now applied
to the whole nation of Israel. Israel is going
to go through a long season of stripping, stripping
away everything that they've relied on. Before
the legitimate, whether it's the legitimate structures
of their worship or the illegitimate structures
of their idolatry, they're going to have no king
to lead them. They're going to have no temple
to sacrifice at and no idols to bow down. They're
going to go into exile, removed from their land,
subject to a foreign king and authority for a
time. And at first this might seem like abandonment,
like God has abandoned his people, but it is
actually the discipline of love. God is removing
both the crutches and the poison so that the
people will learn to lean on him again. This
time of deprivation has a purpose in it. It is
leading somewhere to verse five because verse
five gives the hope beyond the exile afterward.
The word is full of promise. After the waiting,
after the stripping away, after the discipline,
the people of Israel will return and seek the
Lord their God and David their king. And it's
kind of interesting that they would mention David
their king because David is long dead by this
point in time. David is gone. He's in the ground.
He's buried. So how are they going to return
and seek David their king? Well, it's this interesting
reality about the Bible, especially if you open
up the first pages of Matthew in the New Testament.
You read in the first pages of Matthew a genealogy,
basically tracing the roots. Where did Jesus
come from? What family line is he from? Anyone
know? He's in the line of David. He is in the
line of David. Jesus. is the future and better,
David their King. And after stripping away the
Lord, the people of Israel will return and seek
the Lord their God and David their King, pointing
forward to the Messiah, the son of David, Jesus
Christ, who would shepherd God's people with
perfect righteousness. The return is not just
to a place, not just back to their land, but
to a person, to a person who will bridge the
gap and reunite God's people with God and restore
the relationship. And they will come with awe
to the Lord and to his goodness. For us, these
verses remind us that God's discipline is never
the end and never and end in itself. The many
days are always moving toward the afterward.
The many days of discipline are always moving
toward the afterward. God's goal is restoration.
God's goal is a people who know him and who love
him and who live under the reign of the greater
David, Jesus Christ. And when that restoration
comes, whether in small ways or in this life
or in... fully and finally in Jesus's return,
it will produce in us that same awe described
here. We will stand amazed at a God who would
not only pursue us in our unfaithfulness, not
only pay the price for our redemption, not only
reform us through costly grace, but will also
bring us all the way home. Lest the hope Hosea
holds out, the Redeemer will not stop until his
people are fully restored and completely his.
And so finally, our response to costly grace.
Jose's story in chapter three is more than an
ancient episode between a prophet and his unfaithful
wife. It really is our story. We are Gomer. Every
one of us. We are Gomer. pursued even while we're
running away, bought when we were enslaved to
sin, reformed when we were wayward, restored
when we had no way to bring ourselves back. The
relentless love in verse one and the price that
is paid in verse two and the purposeful waiting
in verse three leads to the final restoration
in verse four and five, and all of it points
us to a greater Redeemer, Jesus Christ. And if
this is the way that God has loved us, then the
question is this, how do we respond to such costly
grace? And I'll tell you, the answer cannot be
indifference. The cross leaves no room for half
-hearted discipleship. It costs the life of...
the Son of God to redeem you. The redemption
is a free gift, but it is not a cheap gift. You
guys ever got a cheap gift before? Some dilly
-dally, right? Mom phoned it in for Christmas,
got you socks. What's this? Actually, the older
you get, the more I'm like, oh cool, socks. It's
awesome. Wow, thanks. I remember once I was given
a gift. I was on staff leading as a worship leader.
And for my birthday, the staff gathered together
funds. And I was invited to go to a guitar center.
And I was a worship leader, so I was leading
worship. And I was brought there and said, which
guitar do you want? I was like oh from where
like there's a lot of guitars around here like
they're like pick any one you want anyone Well,
and I'm like, okay, I Don't even care about the
features. What's the price right? Like if this
is gonna be a gift, it's gonna be a gift Let's
make it happen, right? No, there were definitely
guitars that were more expensive than what I
chose If you know guitars, then you know there
are 10, 15, 20, $30 ,000 guitars in a special
case surrounded by the CIA and FBI and other
people. Keep people from playing Stairway to
Heaven on them. But no, I remember receiving
this gift of a brand new Taylor guitar, around
$3 ,000 guitar. A blessing. But I remember it
was a gift. It was free. But it cost way more
than I would ever spend on a guitar. Way more.
The gift of salvation, the gift of redemption
is a free gift to be received by anyone and everyone,
to be shouted from the rooftops and told to the
whole world and invited to receive this free
gift. But it is not a cheap gift. And for you
who are walking with Christ, I remind you of
the words of Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor, who
was a missionary to China, said, Christ is either
Lord of all or he is not Lord at all. Christ
is either Lord of all or he is not Lord at all.
So is Jesus Christ Lord of all in your life?
Or is Jesus not Lord at all? Because costly grace
means that we leave behind the idols that would
our hearts and affections away from God It means
we do not treat sin lightly or assume that grace
is a license to live however we please it means
we embrace the seasons of waiting and Refining
that God brings into our life trusting that he
has a purpose and that he is making us into The
perfect soul that he is aiming for It means that
we extend the same kind of pursuing, forgiving,
covenant -keeping love to others, even when it
costs us greatly. We extend costly grace to them
as well. Tim Keller says that the gospel is this,
we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than
we ever dared believe. Yet at the very same time,
we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ.
than we ever dared hope. We respond to costly
grace with lives that are marked by gratitude
and obedience and surrender. We take up our cross
daily not to earn his love, but because his love
has already secured us. We follow Jesus wherever
he leads because the one who paid the ultimate
price for us is worthy of nothing less than our
whole selves. And so today here, Hosea 3, not
only as a story about God's love for his people
then, but as an invitation to live in light of
that love now. Remember who you were when he
found you. Remember what it cost him to redeem
you. And let your life be a thank you to the
one who went out again and paid the price. who
waited for you and who will one day bring you
all the way home.