For Sept 6

Sermon Notes: From Rejection to Redemption:

Intro: This morning, as Communion Sunday, celebrating our redemption, we’ll be using the OT Book of Hosea to show God’s wrath and judgement that turned to redemption. Hosea was one of twelve minor prophets. Minor refers to their shorter prophecies, which means they could have each been recorded on one scroll, whereas the major prophets, like Isaiah, would have  recorded their longer prophecies on several scrolls. These 12 minor prophets delivered God's messages to Israel and Judah between roughly 780 and 420 BC. Their main themes included warnings of a coming judgment for disobedience, a calling for people to repent, to love mercy, and seek justice, and thirdly, offering hope for a future restoration.

 

I. Hosea 2:14-23

A. Most Bible readers overlook the Book of Hosea, but those who have read it probably remember its unique message of God telling Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer, who had no connection to the Marine Corps TV character. A prostitute was the usual icon for unfaithfulness, here symbolizing the unfaithfulness of Israel, while Hosea is the icon for God, the husband of the unfaithful Israel. Scholars debate whether such a marriage was actual or a vision to convey God’s message, but for our purposes, we‘ll consider them actual people, actually married.

B. The first chapter begins with God telling Hosea to marry a prostitute. Hosea’s marriage to Gomer was a symbol of Israel’s covenant unfaithfulness. As a wife who breaks faith with her husband violates the marriage bond, Israel had abandoned the Lord for idols, foreign alliances, and the worship practices of surrounding nations. Hosea’s love toward the prostitute Gomer would portray the Lord’s enduring love toward an undeserving, unfaithful people. Gomer has three children. The first is a son God said was to be named Jezreel, after a bloody battlefield that had been fought as a result of Israel’s idolatry, by which God was saying He would punish Israel for the massacre at Jezreel, and break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel, signifying an end to Israel. 

C. The second child is a daughter God says is to be named Lo-Ruhamah, which means “not loved” to say He would no longer show love to Israel, nor would He forgive them. A third child, a son, is born that God said was to be named Lo-Ammi, which means “not my people”, for they were no longer His people, nor was He their God. By this symbolic marriage and children, God was sending Israel His message of wrathful judgement. A message of rejection, divorce in human terms.

D. Gomer resumes her former life as a prostitute, openly showing her unfaithfulness to Hosea, justification for Hosea breaking any further ties with Gomer, seemingly portraying God’s judgement. But then God shows a change of heart, telling Hosea to find Gomer, pay the price to redeem her from her current lover, and return with her to their home. The symbolism here might be representative of God in the NT. Just as God had not cut ties

 

 

with the unfaithful Israel, He mercifully tells Hosea to find Gomer, pay the

purchase price to redeem her from her lover, and restore her as his wife. It’s an obvious symbolic prophecy of God sending Jesus to pay the purchase price to then Israel’s lover, Satan, to redeem Israel, restoring her to God, who still loved her despite her unfaithfulness. But the priceless purchase price of Jesus’ own blood was infinitely more than sufficient to include all people, not just Israel.

E. Through the redeemed Gomer, the Lord reveals His merciful nature, declaring His intent to allure, or restore Israel, rather than abandon His covenant people. He would pursue His people who had run after Baal and trusted foreign powers, drawing her back by His grace. He promises to make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. To understand that reference, we need to recall that when Joshua defeated Jericho, the people were told not to take anything from the ruins, but one soldier, Achan, disobeyed and buried his stolen treasure in the Valley of Achor. Achor, meaning “trouble,” was associated with Achan’s sin that caused Joshua’s army’s defeat by the smaller city of Ai. God would transform a former place of trouble, remembered for judgment, into an entrance to renewed blessing, thereby promising to lead His repentant people from the place of their failure into a future marked by hope.

F. Through the redeemed Gomer, God would show His love for the children of unfaithful Gomer, symbolic of Israel. To those He had previously called ‘Not my People’ , He would now say “you are My people’, and the people would say “You are my God.” Instead of Master, they would call God ‘my husband’.

G. So God’s message to Hosea that began with the wrath of judgement, had turned to a message of redemption, revealing God’s love and mercy. Redeemed, just as He had led Israel from Egyptian slavery into the wilderness during The Exodus, and had provided for them, and formed them into His people at Sinai en route to the land of milk and honey, the Promised Land. Their experiences in the desert had been like a honeymoon to prove the faithfulness of God as the husband to his new bride. The marriage imagery within the Exodus reveals the depth of the Lord’s love for Israel, His chosen bride. The marriage imagery that continued into Hosea revealing the depth of His mercy for His unfaithful bride.

H. But Hosea isn’t just a short range prophecy, a cooling of God’s wrath. God would respond to Israel’s unfaithfulness throughout Scripture, but here, God is also revealing His long range intentions with the words, “In that day”, referring to Christ’s return, when He will forever remove His people’s idolatry, and abolish weapons of war so that all will be safe. He would betroth them, in faithfulness, to Himself forever. In righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. Betrothal was a formal contract for a future marriage. We see the fulfillment of that betrothal in Revelation where it talks about the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, Jesus, to his faithful bride, His Church, in heaven.

 

 

I. God in the OT is often only seen as an angry, wrathful God. Just as we saw God’s wrath in the first chapter of Hosea responding to Israel’s

unfaithfulness to the faithful God, her worship of idols and false gods, and the immoralities in such worship. We might even see God as justified in His actions against Israel. But critics of God fail to recognize the other places revealing His mercy and His grace, like in the remaining 12 chapters of Hosea. The final chapter of Hosea is His call to repentance with the covenantal promise of redemption that was fulfilled in Jesus’ Resurrection.

J. We began our worship this morning singing “Great is Thy Faithfulness, praising our God for His unchanging faithfulness. Our Call to Worship captures the main essence of Hosea 14: "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God..." Repentance is not just feeling bad about sin; it’s a change of direction—turning away from what broke us and toward the One who redeemed us. True repentance requires open confession, not hiding or excusing our faults. God doesn't ask for expensive sacrifices; He only asks for our sincere, faithful love.

 

II. John 10:11-18

A. But not even the concluding chapters of prophetic hope in Hosea can match the truth and beauty in our Gospel Lesson from John. While Hosea offered hope for the people God now called, ‘my people’ and ‘loved by God’, Jesus was the embodiment of all the OT promises of hope. John portrays that hope fulfilled with Jesus declaring Himself as the Good Shepherd. Drawing on His analogy, the Good Shepherd knows His sheep, guards them, and accepts personal responsibility for their welfare. Although Jesus here is talking directly to a Jewish audience, He says He has other sheep not of that pen, which he must also shepherd. By this, Jesus was making it understood that He is the Good Shepherd for all His sheep, Jews and Gentiles. The Good Shepherd knows all His sheep individually, so all who know Him as the Good Shepherd know His voice, and follow Him.

B. So we must ask, how do we discern His voice from the voices of this world?  We aren’t born knowing His voice calling to us. But lambs learned to trust their shepherd, by following him to the green pastures and still waters David wrote about in the 23rd Psalm. Like sheep, when we follow him, we learn we can trust Him. We hear His voice in Scripture and find Him trustworthy, and search for even the greater meanings in His words. We learn to recognize His guiding touch upon us, as a shepherd would reassure troubled sheep with his staff gently pressed to their sides. When a shepherd called his sheep from among other sheep, they recognized His voice and followed him. If another shepherd called, the sheep didn’t recognize that voice, they wouldn’t respond.

C. It's one thing to recognize our Good Shepherd’s voice. But, like humans, sheep are often willful and stubborn. They may hear His voice, know His voice, but decide to wander away, choosing their own way to find better grazing. And soon find themselves alone, feeling abandoned by the

Shepherd. But from the Word of God, we know the parable of the Lost Sheep, where the shepherd would leave the rest of the sheep in safety, to search for the lost one, rejoicing when He found it and returned it to safety

 

D. But our Good Shepherd protects His flock, not merely by confronting danger, but by laying down His life for them, bearing death in their place. His death on the cross was voluntary, purposeful, and necessary for the redemption of sinners, further proof of how far He will go to restore us to Himself, even knowing our unfaithfulness to Him. Just as God sent Hosea to pay the purchase price to redeem his unfaithful wife with money, God sent His Son to pay the purchase price to redeem us with His own body and blood, the only One who could pay that steep price. That reveals both the certainty of His love, and the sufficiency of His atoning work. The only One who loves His people enough to do that.

E. By comparison, Jesus describes the hired hand who would abandon the sheep when danger appears because they aren’t his sheep. Those are the false gods we look to, that vanish when we would most need them to provide such protection. False gods like money, power, and status, to name only a few, may give us false hope of their protection, but they prove to be illusions that eventually fade or disappear, even if they should appear to remain until our death. They have no power of their own, but only the power we give them over us. They have no power beyond that, and when their powerlessness is revealed, we are left empty, unloved.

F. The Pharisees of Jesus’ time were supposed to be the shepherds of the people. But Jesus exposed them as those whose only interests were in self-preservation and status, who led the people away from God. If we listen to the false gods of this world they will lead us astray as well. Jesus tells us that His sheep know His voice and follow Him, but the trouble we may find ourselves in today is that we may have known the voice of our Good Shepherd, but have wandered away, choosing our own ways for our pleasures.

G. And like the lost sheep in Jesus’ parable, who wandered away from the shepherd and found itself surrounded by trouble, we feel abandoned by God. But, as we saw in Hosea, although God had pronounced His judgement on unfaithful Israel, He had not abandoned them. His wrath was overcome by His love and mercy. From that love and mercy, Jesus came as the fulfillment of God’s prophecies for the redemption of all the sheep of His pasture, Jews and Gentiles, taking us from rejection that would be deserved for our sins, to redemption through His grace.

 

Conclusion: Today we celebrate Communion as a means of His Grace. The bread and juice remind us of the cost Jesus paid to redeem us. We hear His voice from Hosea reminding us we are ‘loved by God’, and that we are ‘His people’, and He is our God. Communion reminds us that we know our Redeemer lives, and is always our Good Shepherd, ready to return us to salvation when we stray. Amen