[0:00] Good morning, church. Good to see you this morning. The passage on which our teaching is based this morning is Isaiah chapter 6.
[0:10] Would you turn there with me? You brought a Bible. If not, you can turn to page 754 in the Q Bible. I can follow along there. As you turn to our text, I want to make just a preliminary comment on how we sort of divided up the sermon passage this morning.
[0:27] You'll notice on the sermon card or in the bulletin that we've chosen to actually end our reading this morning with the first half of verse 11, which in the ESV is sort of cutting the sentence right in half. Well, you know, ancient writing practices didn't actually have anything like our modern practices of punctuation.
[0:46] So translators today have to make decisions about where sentences begin and end. And actually, if you have an NIV, you'll notice that they placed a full stop after the word appointed and then took the phrase, when I restore, as going along with the parallel phrase, when I would heal, in chapter 7, verse 1.
[1:04] So as we as a staff have sort of been studying and meditating on these passages, that seemed to be the preferable reading of the text. So that's the one that we'll be following this morning. So there's your dose of textual criticism for the morning.
[1:18] Now we'll get into the sermon. So Hosea chapter 6, verse 1 through 11, page 754. Let me read this for us. Hosea says, Let us come.
[1:32] Let us return to the Lord. For he has torn us, that he may heal us. He struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days, he will revive us.
[1:44] And on the third day, he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. His going out is as sure as the dawn.
[1:56] He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?
[2:07] Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. Therefore, I've hewn them by the prophets. I've slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as a light.
[2:20] For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. But like Adam, they transgress the covenant.
[2:31] There they dealt faithlessly with me. Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood, as robbers lie in wait for a man. So the priests band together. They murder on the way to Shechem.
[2:41] They commit villainy. In the house of Israel, I've seen a horrible thing. Israel's whoredom is there. Israel's defiled. For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.
[2:55] Let's pray together. God, that you, our creator, would stoop to enter into a relationship with us as a mighty and majestic thing.
[3:16] Lord, and that you would give us your word so that we could have a relationship with you, so that we could hear you speak and know you.
[3:31] God, what a gift that is. So Lord, we pray this morning that by your spirit, you would speak again. Jesus, that you would speak through your word to our hearts, to us as your people.
[3:46] Draw us near to you once again. Father, we pray this in the name of Christ. Amen. So if I had to venture a guess this morning, I would guess that the word repentance doesn't immediately bring warm and fuzzy feelings to your mind.
[4:03] Am I right? Of course I'm right. Come on, repentance. On the one hand, culturally, it seems like there's always some celebrity or political leader making a public apology for some indiscretion or infidelity.
[4:17] Repentance, in this case, has become the thing you do to get the media off your back, the sort of scripted public charade so you can get back to rebuilding your image. Repentance, that sort of leaves a bad taste in our mouth, doesn't it?
[4:31] But of course, if that cultural phenomenon doesn't color your thoughts about repentance, there's always our personal run-ins with the idea. The so-called friend who says, well, I'm sorry if I offended you.
[4:42] Which isn't really being sorry at all, is it? If I offended you, right? Or the memories of a parent telling you to say you're sorry even though you were definitely playing with that toy first and you can prove it.
[4:54] Or more seriously, the time you actually did lay bare your wrongdoing and grief and regret only to have the other person sort of throw it back in your face and coldly say, well, it's no big deal and then punish you with their silence.
[5:11] So given all these experiences, repentance is probably something we'd rather just not talk about, thank you very much, right? And yet repentance, the way the Bible understands it, is utterly essential to life before God.
[5:30] So even though we might have to cut through our cultural misconceptions and personal experiences to really get at it, it will be worth the effort. Because what our passage is saying this morning is that God promises to spiritually heal and revive and refresh all who return to Him.
[5:50] And returning to God is what the Bible means by repentance. So when our passage opens with the words, come, let us return to the Lord, it's a call to repentance.
[6:06] So first then, what exactly is biblical repentance? What does it mean to return to the Lord? Well, some have defined repentance as a decisive change of mind or a decisive change of heart that leads to a change in action.
[6:18] Now often we think of repentance as feeling really emotionally distraught, right? It's sort of grief. But repentance is actually more than that.
[6:29] You see, imagine you're riding on a train and you're excited to make it into the city for a Yankees game or, well, that's, I guess, presuming you're a Yankees fan. You can sort of fill in your own favorite team here in this illustration.
[6:40] You've got your tickets in hand, your hat is proudly displaying your team loyalty. But then suddenly you realize that you've got on the wrong train.
[6:52] That this train doesn't go to New York, it goes to Boston. Blah. Or it's going to Boston instead of New York. Whatever, you know. Well, you can break down into tears.
[7:04] You can throw your nice hat on the ground. You can vow never to make that same mistake ever again. You can be utterly, emotionally distraught. But until you get off at the next stop, turn around, and get on the train headed to New York, you haven't really repented in the biblical sense of the word.
[7:26] So biblically, it's a change of mind. You see, you see something that you never saw before. You have a new conviction about reality. This train leads to Boston. And that leads to a change in action.
[7:38] You get off the train and you get on the one headed the other way. Now that's just one sort of way of getting a grasp of this biblical idea of repentance, of returning to the Lord. We could also look at the context of our passage and get a pretty good picture of what is meant by returning to the Lord.
[7:53] Look back at chapter 5, verse 15. It sets the stage for what Hosea says in our chapter this morning. God says, I'll return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face and in their distress earnestly seek me.
[8:09] So here, quite nicely, we actually see at least two components of genuine repentance. First, acknowledging your guilt. That is, seeing sin for what it is.
[8:22] And that means taking responsibility and ownership and not making excuses or denials or comparisons. We're quite good at that, aren't we? Well, I was pretty tired.
[8:34] I was really tired and I was hungry and that's why I snapped out at you in anger. Or, you just don't know how irritating she can be. If she weren't so annoying, I would be a lot more patient with her.
[8:48] Right? Or look, I'm not as bad as the other guys in the office. I mean, come on, I'm a pretty good person compared to them. This is sort of the common fare that we deal in.
[9:01] But seeing sin for what it is means owning up without excuses, without comparisons, and saying, I was wrong. Of course, seeing sin for what it is means another thing as well.
[9:14] It means not just grieving over the consequences of the sin, but over the sin itself. Now, I can't believe how long it took me to actually see that distinction, but when it was first showed to me, I was amazed I hadn't seen it before because it's so vital.
[9:29] You see, we can be very sorry for sin because of all sorts of consequences that it brings to us, can't we? The punishments we might incur, the shame we might feel for being exposed, the loss of reputation we'll suffer when others find out.
[9:45] But you see, true repentance means being sorry not just for all that, but for the sin itself because it displeases and dishonors God. We see the sin, whatever it is, finally as something not just that's going to mean bad consequences for us, but something that steals glory from God, as something that disobeys Him, that deals faithlessly with Him.
[10:11] Sin is something that says that God is powerless and small and insignificant and not worthy of love and devotion. In true biblical repentance, we start to actually see sin for what it is and grieve the sin itself.
[10:26] So that's the first aspect of repentance that we see here in the context of our passage, acknowledging your guilt, admitting it, not excusing it, seeing sin for what it is. And the second aspect is seeking God's face.
[10:39] That is turning from sin and turning to God. Now understand this, turning to God doesn't mean trying to make up for your sin by good works or by doing penance, which by the way, if you're looking for confessionals here in our old Roman Catholic building, you won't find them.
[10:58] Or having good intentions or even making really good resolutions to change, that's not what it means to seek God's face. Verse 15 doesn't say acknowledge your guilt and then clean up your act first and then maybe if you do a good enough job, God will accept you.
[11:14] Of course, on the surface, that sounds pretty humble, right? That sounds pretty holy. I'm going to admit my guilt and then do all sorts of things to try to make it up to God. And then maybe if he chooses, he'll accept me on the basis of that.
[11:27] It sounds kind of humble, right? But you see, it's not real repentance. In fact, that's actually a covert form of self-righteousness, is it not?
[11:39] In essence, it's really an attempt to atone for your own sins and to earn God's favor based on your own merits. It turns out that that approach is actually the worst form of pride.
[11:53] Rather, biblical repentance means turning to God to receive his forgiveness and acceptance. To receive it freely from his hand. And it means entrusting yourself completely to him and to his ways.
[12:08] And of course, if you do that, you won't stay the same. God will change you, right? But we shouldn't confuse the two. Repentance is turning from sin and entrusting ourselves to God.
[12:19] It's seeking him with open hands to receive what he freely gives. So there you have it, a preliminary sketch of what the Bible means by repentance. And you can see how that's, in some ways, radically different from the sort of parodies of it that we see around us.
[12:36] And that's our first point, this picture of biblical repentance. But, you know, now as we turn back to chapter 6, in the first three verses, we see not just what repentance is, but what it brings. Or rather, we should say what God does for all who truly return to him.
[12:52] And this promise is as stunning as it is extravagant. You see, verse 1 picks up the imagery of chapter 5. You remember from last week that we saw that God pictured himself as a lion who struck down Israel for their sin.
[13:09] But here, God's saying, upon their return, he will heal them and he will bind them up. And if that's not enough, verse 2 shows us that God's grace can not only heal the spiritually sick, but even raise up the spiritually dead.
[13:26] Could there be a more comprehensive picture of God's triumph over our sin? The wounded are made well and the dead are brought back from the grave.
[13:42] And of course, that has to force us to ask this morning, do you think that you're beyond the pale of God's restoring and forgiving grace? Do you think that you've run past the point of no return?
[13:57] That your wound of sin is too deep? That you've been spiritually dead for just too long for God to receive you and bring you back to life? That if you were to really open up the book of your life over the last month or two months or year, if God were to really see all that, that there's no way He would take you back.
[14:22] That there's no way He would heal that wound. There's no way He would raise you up to live before you. But that's not the case, friends.
[14:35] And isn't that the very point of Hosea? That no matter how unfaithful the spouse has been, that no matter how many lovers she's pursued, that no matter how long she's lived in the arms of another, the Lord still pursues her and calls for her return.
[14:52] That she can repent even now and God will receive her and heal her and even bring her back from the dead. You see, in verse 3, at the end of the day, it's ultimately not God's warnings and God's judgments and the penalties and punishments for sin that drives us to repentance.
[15:15] What is it? At the end of the day, it's ultimately the faithfulness and the renewing grace of God that motivates us to repent. His going out is as sure as the dawn, Hosea says.
[15:30] He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. Now friends, I don't know all of your stories today and many of us here with many different paths of life.
[15:46] But I know this, that every day of your life, the sun has come up. Could it be that God has created the world in such a way to give you a daily reminder of His glorious, faithful love toward you?
[16:04] that every time the sun breaks over the horizon, God is saying, come home, beloved. Come home.
[16:16] And I will send my deep rains down into your dry spirit and bring you to life again. Such is God's promise to His people who return to Him.
[16:31] And if this was true for Hosea under the old covenant, how much more is it true for us today under the new?
[16:43] Now, of course, when we're reading this passage, some of you who are familiar with the New Testament, verse 2 started sending off bells in your mind, right? In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that Christ was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures.
[16:57] Now, everyone agrees he's referring to Jonah, at least with that reference. But it's hard not to think that he had Hosea 6-2 in mind as one of those places where the resurrection of Christ was anticipated.
[17:12] But here's why. Here's the connection. Here's the thread that Paul perceived. You see, what Hosea foresaw was a metaphorical raising up of God's people from death.
[17:24] He promised a time when they'd be spiritually brought back to life. But you see, a massive problem remained. How could they be raised spiritually when they were still dead in their trespasses and sins?
[17:40] In other words, how could they be brought to life when, like Adam, they had transgressed the covenant and so deserved the curse of death? How could Hosea make such a confident claim in light of the realities of the broken law and the broken relationship and the curse of death that was so evident around him?
[18:06] Well, you see, such confidence only makes sense if one day God would act decisively on their behalf to fulfill their covenant obligations and secure their righteousness and take away their sin and curse and to conquer death.
[18:30] And of course, that's exactly what Christ has done. The King He came on our behalf. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, Paul writes, God made us alive together with Christ by grace be heaven's name.
[18:48] He said. You see, it's Christ's physical resurrection that makes the hope of Hosea 2, 6-2 possible. Christ is the guarantee of Hosea's promise.
[19:01] Because Christ was raised, so will all who repent and trust in him be raised. So you see, the new covenant in Christ makes Hosea 6 not just a possibility, but a reality.
[19:16] Not just a nice religious idea, but truly good news. It means that no matter how far you've run or how struck down you become or how dead in sin you might be because God raised Jesus from the dead, all who repent and trust in him are raised spiritually from the dead from the moment of conversion on.
[19:39] And what does that look like? Friends, it looks like the burden of your sins taken away and forgiven. It looks like your spirit being made alive to God and knowing him and experiencing him in ways that you never dreamed were possible.
[19:58] But you see, the promise doesn't just end there. You see, because God raised Jesus from the dead, all who repent and trust in him now won't just be raised physically in the present age, but will be raised won't just be raised spiritually, but physically in the age to come.
[20:19] Do you see? Raised spiritually now, raised physically in the world to come. Does that stretch the bounds of your imagination? Of course it does.
[20:32] But isn't it the good news that you're longing for? That one day you'll be freed from the presence of sin and will be glorified in the presence of God forever.
[20:45] So you see, this promise of healing and reviving and renewal in Christ is a complete one. It's not just for this life, but it's for the life to come. And at this point, if you're sitting in the pew, this morning and you're a Christian and you're sort of thinking that all this is kind of old hat and you've heard it all before and you're thinking this is a really good sermon for non-Christians because they really need to repent and come to know Jesus so they can experience this new life and get out of the spiritual grave and know God and follow Him, so repent and believe, tax collector sinner sitting next to me.
[21:16] Friends, realize this is a message for us too. You see, the normal Christian life should be marked by continual repentance for the remaining sin in our lives.
[21:29] You see, Hosea 6 shows us that repentance is the doorway to deeper experiences of God's healing and reviving and renewing grace. The metaphors of Hosea 6 are all about our relationship with God being restored and deepened and revived as the Holy Spirit shows us more and more of the remaining sin in our lives.
[21:46] We turn. We turn from that sin and turn again to Christ and so experience more and more of God's gifts to us in Him. So you see, in light of the gospel, in light of Christianity, repentance isn't this ugly word, this sort of nasty concept that we sort of grin and bear every once in a while when we have to.
[22:07] But repentance is this great gift and privilege that we get to continually take part in. Now, of course, doesn't that raise a question for Christians?
[22:20] And doesn't the question run something like this? If there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, doesn't Paul say that in Romans? If there's no condemnation for us in Christ Jesus, why do I need to continually repent of sin?
[22:31] If all my sins are completely forgiven, why repent? Aren't I just completely forgiven? Well, the truth is, friends, yes. Through your union with Christ by faith, you are completely forgiven.
[22:44] But the problem is, you don't live as if that were true. The Christian has every spiritual blessing in Christ.
[22:56] God's acceptance, God's forgiveness, God's election, God's redemption, the Spirit, they're all yours, friends, in Him. But we don't always live like that's the case.
[23:09] And that's where sin comes from. We lie, and we lust, and we cheat, and we steal, and we play the victim, and we gossip, and we get angry, and we covet, all because our hearts aren't fully satisfied in Christ, and our desires want to get something else.
[23:27] And that's where repentance comes down. One pastor put it this way, he said, the purpose of repentance, is to repeatedly tap in to the joy of our union with Christ in order to weaken our need to do anything contrary to God's heart.
[23:47] In other words, you see, for the Christian, repentance is the way to experience more and more of what we already have in Christ so that we live more and more in line with who we already are in Christ.
[24:02] Do you see that connection? It's the way to experience more and more of what we already have in Christ so that we live more and more in line with who we already are in Christ. Of course, if you're not a Christian here this morning, repentance is the way to take the first step in.
[24:20] But real growth from there on out is not a matter of keeping more and more rules, but of knowing deeper and deeper repentance. It's like driving an automatic.
[24:33] You're driving an automatic once the car is turned on and put in gear. How do you make it go? You push the gas, right? Off you go. Now, you won't make the car go any faster by rolling down the windows.
[24:46] You won't make it go any faster by flipping on the seat heaters. You won't even make the car go faster by turning on the stereo and blaring your favorite journey song as loud as it can possibly go. Don't stop believing will not increase your velocity.
[25:03] The only way to make the car go faster is by pushing down the gas. Christianity is a bit like that. It's an automatic, of course, because Jesus has turned the key and put the car in the gear.
[25:18] And how do you start? Repentance and faith. Push down the gas. And how do you keep moving forward? How do you pick up speed in this journey of the Christian life?
[25:30] Repentance and faith. You push down the gas. You push down deep into your union with Christ. And you let all the goodness of who He is get injected into the cylinders of your heart and you let it set on fire.
[25:47] Well, that's our second point this morning. Oh, the gift of repentance. Third, and this is the rest of the chapter. We've seen what repentance is.
[25:58] We've seen what God promises through it. And now we catch a glimpse of what prevents real repentance from taking place. What takes our foot off the gas, as it were. You see, in Hosea 1-3, Hosea looks at his rebellious, wayward fellow Israelites and says, don't you see how gracious God is?
[26:17] Come, return. He will heal you and revive you and refresh us. But still, they won't return.
[26:29] So like a broken-hearted lover or an exasperated parent, God exclaims, what shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? And why won't they return?
[26:42] Well, the answer is found in verses 4 and 6. Verse 4, their love is without substance. Like the dew or a morning cloud, it disappears at the first sign of day.
[26:55] It's ephemeral and it's fleeting. But why? Why is their love without any substance? See verse 6. It's because they're content with a mere external religiosity.
[27:11] They make plenty of sacrifices, they take plenty of burnt offerings, but they're blind to their real, desperate need. They're so sick, they don't know they need healing.
[27:24] And they're so dry, they don't know they need the rains, and they're so dead, they don't know they need to be brought to life again. And they cling to the sacrifices, all the while not sealing, seeing that God doesn't want sacrifices, ultimately, but steadfast love.
[27:37] And they give their burnt offerings, all the while not realizing that like Adam in the garden, they've transgressed the covenant and deserve exile and death. And verses 8 through 9 tells us that they track their cities with blood and they hack one another to pieces, and even the priests are engaged in the social fabric falling apart.
[28:00] So you see, because of their contentment, because of their addiction to this mere external religion, their love is shallow, and they're blind to their sin, and Hosea's call to repentance falls on deaf ears.
[28:19] You know, Jesus came preaching repentance too. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, was his opening message of his ministry. And yet, Jesus' call to repentance often fell upon deaf ears.
[28:34] So to the Pharisees, Jesus said, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Quoting from this very passage in Hosea, from the Septuagint, from the Greek translation.
[28:46] That's why it's mercy. So you see, the Pharisees saw no need for true repentance. They were fine. And that's why Jesus' practice of eating with tax collectors and sinners and calling them to return to God was an offense to them.
[29:00] They were sinners. How dare Jesus eat with them? They don't deserve the grace of God. But Jesus, in essence, says to the Pharisees, you too must repent because you too are sick and in need of a physician.
[29:14] You too have broken the covenant with God. If you only understood what Hosea was talking about, Jesus says, then you'd see that you're just like Hosea's audience, content with a shallow, external, presumptuous religiosity.
[29:29] Go and learn what this means, Jesus says. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. And then you'll see why I've come to the tax collectors and the sinners. And then you'll want to sit down at the table with them as well and you'll want to hear the message of God's grace.
[29:46] God's grace to those who acknowledge their sin and repent. So friends, is this call for repentance and the extravagant promise of God's healing, reviving, refreshing grace?
[30:01] Do you fall upon deaf ears today? How about in our church? Are we just going through the motions here at Trinity? There's a welcome, there's four songs, there's a scripture reading, there's a prayer, there's announcements, there's another song, there's an offering, there's a sermon, there's a song.
[30:20] Once a month we do communion and then we go home. Check the ticket, walk out the door. Now I think all these things are really good things.
[30:35] I'm the pastor who oversees these things for goodness sakes. I hope I think they're good things, right? But the danger of externalism is always present and it will always kill genuine repentance and genuine knowledge of God.
[30:50] It will keep everything away from the heart. And let us proceed at arm's length from the God who loves us.
[31:04] How about us as a church? How about you in your own heart? Are you content with a mere external view of your life, of your spirituality, of your relationship with God?
[31:16] Are you so content with looking good on the outside, with judging yourself by your performance, of comparing yourself to other people, at least to tax collectors and sinners so you can show how good you are?
[31:29] And our outward religious practice is dulling you from the fact that God wants steadfast love. Steadfast love of Him and steadfast love of others.
[31:42] Is it dulling you to the fact that He wants us to know Him and press on to know Him? Or still, will we admit, will we admit and see the shallowness of our love?
[31:57] That it's easy to be a Christian on Sunday, but what about the break of day Monday morning? What about when the sun comes up and life gets real? And your marriage, and your kids, and your work, and your classes, and your friends, and your plans, and your dreams, all come rushing in like a bright morning sun?
[32:20] Does your love for God dissipate and dry up like the dew, like a cloud? Do you forget to acknowledge God in the midst of the calling that's placed on your life?
[32:33] You see, loving God doesn't mean pulling out of the world. It means worshiping Him in the midst of it, friends. It means obeying Him in all of our pursuits. Whether you're a doctor or a lawyer or an educator or a laborer, it doesn't matter worshiping Him in the midst of those things.
[32:50] But you see, our love lacks substance and the day drives it away. But don't be blinded by the externals, friends.
[33:02] We have a great need of repentance. And the options in this passage are as stark as they are clear. Israel can either return to the Lord and be blessed beyond anything they would ever deserve or they can refuse to return and eventually receive the harvest of judgment.
[33:21] They can remain in Adam deserving death and exile and they can keep on cutting one another to pieces like we see in verses 8 and 9. But they can return to the Lord and receive the healing and reviving of their soul.
[33:36] The renewing reign of God's presence. of course today we find all this talk about sin and repentance uncomfortable, don't we?
[33:49] And it is uncomfortable. In fact, verse 5 acknowledges that it's not just uncomfortable, it's piercing and deadly like a sword and it's exposing and penetrating as the light.
[34:01] And yet, this is what we need. Notice the word therefore connecting verses 4 and 5. This is God's redemptive response to our shallow love.
[34:12] And then he says 4 at the beginning of verse 6, God is aimed. God aims in this hewing and exposing to bring about the steadfast love and the knowledge of Him that He desires.
[34:23] You see, He wants to cut through the externals. He wants to get through the presumption. You see, God's not out to just make us nice to people who avoid all that talk about sin and repentance.
[34:38] God's out to make us new men and women. And to do that He'll often have to tear us in order to heal us. He'll have to bring deep conviction and exposure of sin so that we'll genuinely return to Him.
[34:58] There's a scene in C.L. Lewis' book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where a boy named Eustace gets turned into a dragon. Remember this scene? Sleeping on a dragon's horde with greedy dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself, Lewis writes.
[35:17] Eustace gets turned into a dragon and at first, of course, he imagines all the things he can do as a dragon like getting even with anyone who's ever pestered him and not having to fear anyone anymore. But soon he realizes that he's actually become a monster cut off from his friends, cut off from relationships.
[35:37] And terrified, he realizes that when the time comes for the others in his group to continue on their journey and to sail to another island, he'll have to remain there, isolated and alone.
[35:49] He's scared. But then one night, he meets the great lion, Aslan. And the lion leads Eustace to a garden where there's a deep, clear pool and he tells him to go bathe.
[36:04] But first, before getting into the pool, Aslan tells him to undress. Eustace, of course, is taken back at first. Dragons don't typically wear clothes. But suddenly, he realizes that as a dragon, he's kind of like a snake and he can sort of shed a layer of skin.
[36:19] So he scratches his scales and sort of rubs around and finally, a layer of skin falls off. But when Eustace approaches the pool, he looks down at his feet and he realizes that he's just as hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly as before.
[36:34] So a second time, he does the same thing and he sheds a layer of skin. But the same thing happens again. Finally, a third time, he scratches off a layer of skin and goes to the water and this time, he looks in and sees his reflection and realizes that even getting off the third layer hasn't done any good.
[36:53] You'll have to let me undress you as he says. Afraid but desperate, Eustace allows the lion to approach him with his claws and he says the very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart and when he began pulling the skin off, it felt worse than anything I've ever felt.
[37:20] but he peeled that beastly stuff right off just as I thought I'd done to myself the other three times but only they hadn't hurt and there it was lying on the grass only ever so much thicker and darker and more knobbly looking than the others had been.
[37:39] And then Aslan picks Eustace up puts him in the pool and in the waters Eustace finds that he's finally become a human again. You see friends the spirit's work in your heart can feel a lot like a lion's claw digging deep into your skin.
[38:00] The conviction of sin can feel like a tear so deep that it cuts right into your heart. But if you pull away the transformation can't come. Our surface rites and rituals and sacrifices the sloughing off of our skin it just doesn't get beneath the surface.
[38:20] He's the only one who can get deep enough to bring change. So has God been getting deep and uncomfortable and painful with you with an area of your life with an aspect of your heart instead of pulling away friend let him tear let him strike you down as verse 1 puts it so that he might feel you and bind you up.
[38:55] Let the old self die that heavy weight of your dragon's scales and let him put you in the pool and bring you back to life.
[39:09] In other words friends repent let him make you human again so that you might live before him. Such is the message of Hosea 6.
[39:24] May God do this work in all our hearts so that we may know true repentance and so live. Let's pray. God we confess that repentance is something that we're so anxious about.
[39:42] God we're so afraid of being exposed we're so afraid of being rejected God we're so afraid of what others will say God we're so afraid of the pain of losing some of the things that we've clung on to for so many years and yet Lord we see the promises in this passage of being healed of being raised of the sun of your presence rising up upon us of the deep showers finally coming down and getting below into the soil of our hearts and causing us to come to life.
[40:17] God we thank you for your grace to us in Jesus Christ. we thank you that in his death and resurrection we can know healing and newness of life. Lord will your grace and your kindness lead us to repentance this day.
[40:34] For we ask in Christ's name Amen. Come to the Lord's table to the Lord's supper.
[40:48] we use the metaphor of putting your foot on the gas. In one sense the Lord's supper is a way of putting your foot down on the gas.
[41:03] What we do here is we take some broken bread and we take some poured out juice and we pass it around and we eat it and we drink it.
[41:14] What are we doing? We're remembering what Christ has done for us. We're remembering and we're proclaiming that Christ's body was broken for our sins and that Christ's blood was shed for our transgressions and that when we come to true repentance and faith in him we're healed we're revived we're restored.
[41:39] See the Lord's table is for Christians friends. It's for those who place their faith in Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[41:52] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Gonzalez believe for our sinérie edit him withừng right sisters oh