I, like every child, had a simple and naive view of the adult world.
I was around about 10 when I first noticed someone writing out a cheque to pay for something.
And for me as a 10-year-old, a cheque book seemed like a great option.
Scribbling on a piece of paper and you could buy whatever you want.
I remember asking them, where do you get one of those from and whether or not I could have one of those?
They said, you get it from the bank and no, you can't have one until you're an adult.
And I remember thinking, oh, how good it would be to be an adult.
They have it so easy.
Here am I having to, you know, scrape together coins, beg from parents in order to buy something small.
And an adult whips out a cheque book and you can buy anything in the world with it just by scribbling on a piece of paper.
That is brilliant.
Oh, how I long to be an adult.
From my perspective, adults seem to be able to do whatever they want whenever they wanted.
And I couldn't wait to be one to have all that freedom and all that power at my disposal.
Now, as an adult and as a father, I see that naivety and that simplicity in my girls.
It is both cute and frustrating.
My girls right now are into horses.
I hope they get out of it before they actually want one.
But so right now, things like saddle club, DVDs, they've got horse heads on sticks and soft toys and Barbie on horse backs.
And it just goes on and on and on.
They've noticed that horses eat grass and that we have grass in our backyard.
And so they conclude, why can't we have a horse?
And I've said to them, well, that's just impossible.
We cannot have a horse in our backyard.
The best you can do is pony rides occasionally, like when we have a church here on some sort of fun afternoon.
And so when we had one recently, the Chinese congregations had three little ponies came in.
I got the job of assisting one of my children on the horse pony ride.
And I was talking to the person leading the horses who owned the horses.
And I said, you wouldn't believe my kids.
They think they can own one of these things in their backyard.
Well, what's wrong with that?
She said, we had three in our backyard before we had to get a bigger backyard.
I'm like, do not tell my children that they can actually have a horse in their backyard.
Now, it's a little more difficult for me when their simplicity or the naivety takes me for granted.
Like little concern for breaking toys and here you go, daddy, fix this.
Because that's what daddy does.
He fixes things.
Or I remember the time we pulled into a car park in the shopping centre.
And as I'm hopping out of the car, I heard the back door of the car go bang against a concrete pillar with a little bit of gusto.
It was an accident.
But I still recall being fairly upset about that incident.
About the careless attitude towards the car.
And I said things like, you need to look before you hop out and open the door.
You could have dented it.
You could have put a big scratch on someone else's car.
And my ranting received the reply.
Little pat on the leg.
Don't worry, daddy.
We could just buy another one.
And I'm like, with what?
Just get out one of those plastic cards or the checkbook that you've got on your desk.
Oh, like father, like daughter.
It is easy for us to have a naive, childlike idea of God.
That is, God is the all-powerful and he's the all-loving.
And so he should, frankly, just get over when things are not right in the world.
He should just get over it.
He should just love everyone.
Pretty simple, really.
God is love.
He is meant to forgive.
And so he should just do that.
He should just forgive.
Anyway, how can he really be hurt by my sin and my rebellion when he knew it was going to happen anyway?
So he can't really be, you know, that deeply hurt.
He shouldn't, you know, it's expectations.
He knew we were going to fail right from the beginning.
And so is he really hurt when we actually do?
He just goes, oh, I just knew that was going to happen.
It is not too hard to take God for granted and treat him like some sort of an emotionless machine in our simplicity and our naivety as we look upon God as the all-powerful, as all the freedom and resources in the world.
And the danger is that we purge God's love of anything that's uncomfortable and we sanitize it and sentimentalize it to the point where most people nowadays are not surprised if you tell them that God loves them.
Well, of course he loves me.
That's his job, isn't it?
Besides, why wouldn't he love me?
I'm cute and I'm lovable.
Or at least I'm certainly more lovable than that other person over there.
So why wouldn't he love me?
And this is where in the last couple of weeks, Hosea has been so helpful for us.
He helps us to see the problem of our sin from the Father's perspective, from God's perspective.
He sheds light on our understanding of our relationship with him from his perspective so that we don't read things like love and forgiveness from our perspective and push them back up to him and say, this is what God must be like.
He has introduced us or shown us what he is like by introducing us to a family that is a miniature of this world.
In Hosea, God is not the emotionless, all-powerful magician, but a broken-hearted husband and father who tears open his chest to reveal to his people what they have done and how they have hurt him.
Hosea 11, which Ken just read out to us, is one of the boldest in the Old Testament, indeed, possibly in the whole Bible, in exposing us to the mind and heart of God in human terms.
Last October, we had a week's holiday visiting my family in Tasmania.
And the entertainment one afternoon was, when I was with my parents, was an old-fashioned slideshow, family slideshow, which sets out to reveal the embarrassing moments of your family history, courtesy of my parents.
Noticeably, most of the photos were about the three children.
Of particular interest and delight for my girls were the photos of their daddy, all-powerful daddy, fix anything, sitting on a potty.
Naked in the shower.
Wet patches around the pants.
Dressed up as a cowboy.
Asleep in cupboards and weird positions.
Covered in grime and food and crying.
I've never heard them laugh so much at times.
And it amazed me that my parents, my dad's 75, were remarkably sharp about the details of when and where those photos were taken.
We were asking, where's that?
When did that happen?
But they knew the details.
They were even able to express something of the emotions of what was happening when that photo was taken.
All these years later, 40 odd years later.
And that's the picture of Isaiah 11.
It starts as if God pulls out the slideshow of his children.
He remembers all the details.
The first photo is the day of the adoption was finalized in verse 1 there.
When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son.
He remembers the joy of picking up his own son, his new son, up into his arms and embracing him and taking him home.
I'll never forget the day when I held Isabel for the first time, my first child.
Because she cried for two hours.
I'll never forget that moment.
And the smile which was on my face.
The nurse came in after an hour and a half and said, are you alright, love?
I said, I'm perfect.
He remembers the day that his son learned to walk.
In verse 3, it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms.
He remembers the pride as his little man pulled himself up on the couch and grabbed his finger and began to walk.
He remembers the chuffed look on his face when he took those first three steps into his arms.
He remembers the day also when he fell and scraped his knee in his staggering around.
In verse 3, it was I who healed them.
He remembers the pity and the compassion he felt when he saw the pain in his boy's eyes and he applied a bandage and he brought comfort to him.
He remembers the guidance that he gave.
Verse 4, I led them with cords of human kindness.
With ties of love, I lift the yoke from their neck.
He remembers having to instruct and correct and to guide his son.
But it was done with gentleness and with tenderness and with love and with kindness.
He remembers the high chair.
He got the photo of the kid with food all over their face in verse 4 where he bent down to feed his son.
He remembers the delight in providing everything that his son needed, the nourishment and the help.
God is portrayed here in these early verses as a doting father over the life of his beloved son.
And every photo as he flicks through the album just recalls the moment, what he felt, the love, the passion, the compassion, the devotion to his son.
And yet, his heart burns.
His heart is broken.
Verse 2, but the more I called Israel, the further they went from me.
They sacrificed to the bales and they burned incense to images.
Verse 3, but they did not realise it was I who healed them.
Their rebellion and sin and cavalier attitude from the son to the father just breaks his heart.
He flicks through the family album, remembering his son and his love for him.
And yet, his son is grown up and is wayward.
Sin in Hosea is not portrayed as breaking an impersonal moral code or standards or a set of rules.
Sin is intensely personal.
It is adultery.
It is spurning a loving husband.
It is spurning a doting father.
It is spurning the love of God.
And we have seen in the last couple of weeks the catalogue of Israel's sin.
Chapter 8, verse 14 pretty much sums it up.
Israel has forgotten his maker.
The broken hearted father is hurt and he is offended and he is angry.
His love has been spurned.
In fact, in chapter 9, verse 15, he says that he hated them.
That's strong language.
And so he pronounces his judgment in chapter 11, verse 5.
Will they not return to Egypt?
Remember in verse 1, I called them out of Egypt?
Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent?
Swords will flash in their cities.
Will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans.
My people are determined to turn from me.
Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.
The wayward son is guilty.
Descended is pronounced.
It is invasion.
It is exile.
And a burdensome captivity.
His son has spurned his love.
He is angry.
He hates it.
And so he's going to throw all of his stuff out of the house.
He's going to cut off the allowance.
And cut off contact.
But he loves him beyond comprehension.
See the next verse, verse 8.
How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Abba?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
He's saying, you are my beloved firstborn.
How can I treat you like the other nations, the nations that were, the other cities which were around Sodom and Gomorrah,
who got obliterated with Sodom and Gomorrah.
Not even mentioned again in world history.
How can I treat you like that?
I have set my heart upon you.
The turmoil in the Father's heart is right there in verse 8.
My heart is changed within me.
All my compassion is aroused.
My heart recoils.
It turns over.
It churns inside of me.
It's not that God is confused.
It's not that he doesn't know what to do.
Those verses just simply express the emotional intensity of God's love in language.
It just helps us to see something of his heart.
He must judge the sin.
His holiness demands it.
But he cannot abandon his promise to love his son.
And so how can the demands of both God's love and his justice be satisfied?
Decision is reached in verse 9.
I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
It's not that God has all of a sudden changed his mind about his son's sin.
It's not like God all of a sudden agree with Israel.
Yeah, you know, you're right.
I should get over it.
I'm much bigger than this.
I should just build a bridge, get over it.
You know, I shouldn't take it so seriously.
I should just love you instead.
What verse 9 means is he decides not to execute the heat of his anger.
He literally holds it back.
He holds back his pent-up anger rather than unleashing it on his rebellious son.
God's compassion is aroused and he will turn his anger away from his son and not devastate him.
How can he do that?
Because verse 9 says he is God.
That's how he can do it.
And he is not a man.
That's how he does it.
That's good.
Except at God's beckoning in 722 BC, Assyria came and obliterated Israel.
They destroyed Jerusalem and deported those who weren't killed into the four corners of their empire.
The ten tribes of Israel never re-entered world history again.
Did God actually go back on his word?
Did his wayward son, after God said this in Hosea 11, you know, so you move on a little bit further,
a couple of years down the track.
Did God's son just commit one more sin, which was just the straw that broke the camel's back and goes,
right, unleash.
Had enough.
Did God's anger spill over in frustration?
Was love not able to win out in the end?
Did God actually turn his back on his promise in Hosea 2?
To take a people, not his, and make them his people?
Big questions.
Judgment on Israel was not the end.
Centuries later, a baby was born in a stable.
And as a boy, he went to Egypt with his parents to escape from King Herod.
Matthew chapter 2 tells us,
The name of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and he said,
Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.
Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.
And so he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt,
where he stayed until the death of Herod.
And so was fulfilled what the prophet had said through the prophet.
And then here Matthew quotes from Hosea 11 verse 1,
Out of Egypt I called my son.
Matthew makes the connection with Hosea so that we might see that this infant Jesus
as more than just another baby boy, but as the son of the living God.
Jesus' identity is made explicit at his baptism in Matthew 3,
when a voice from heaven says,
This is my son with whom I am well pleased.
I love him.
In Hosea 11, Israel was the son of God who disobeyed from the moment
that they were brought out of Egypt and into the wilderness.
And here we have the Lord Jesus, the eternal son of God,
the true Israelite, the true Israel.
He is what Israel should have been.
And Jesus was brought out of Egypt.
And when he has grown up, he was cast out, let out into the wilderness,
but without sin.
He lived the perfect life.
He lived as Israel should have lived.
And it would be the obedient, innocent, guiltless, and beloved son of the Father
who would willingly, willingly resolve the tension in the heart of God
between God's commitment to us and our rebellion against him.
The anguish and the horror as God unleashes centuries of held back anger
upon his beloved son, the Lord Jesus.
As the Lord Jesus takes our sin upon his shoulders and dies
and suffers God's judgment for us.
God resolves the tension of his anger and love within himself on the cross.
The Father said to his beloved son at his baptism,
this is my beloved son.
I love him.
And the son cries out to the father on the cross,
my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
The father turns his face away, as we have sung,
from his much-loved son and he exiles him to the grave.
But it was the love of the father
that turned back to him and brought him triumphantly from the grave.
And only in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus
is the tension in the heart of God satisfied.
He satisfies it himself.
He doesn't look to us to satisfy it.
Our rebellion against God is dealt with as Jesus calls out from the cross,
it is finally over.
And so the lion that pounced in judgment on God's people in Hosea 5
now roars in Hosea 11
to scare off the captives of God's people
and to gather its cubs to himself.
They will follow the Lord.
He will roar like a lion.
And when he roars, his children will come trembling,
no longer taking him for granted,
no longer abusing him from the West.
And they will come trembling like birds from Egypt,
like doves from Assyria.
I will settle them in their homes, declares the Lord.
From every corner of the earth,
no matter how deep the depths of sin and depravity,
the father is calling people from every aspect
into relationship with himself through the Lord Jesus.
And he gives us the status of sonship.
What news!
The Apostle Paul ends Romans 8
proclaiming his absolute confidence
in God's future salvation of his people through Jesus.
He stresses that nothing can stop God from fulfilling his promises
to eternally save everyone who trusts in the Lord Jesus.
He ends Romans 8 with a bold statement of confidence in God's love
that nothing can hinder God's love.
He says,
I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons,
neither present nor the future,
nor any powers,
neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all of creation
will be able to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus,
our Lord.
Lord.
What a statement!
Just imagine
that you are sitting in the church in Rome
as that letter is being read out from Paul.
You're one of the Jewish Christians sitting in the church
and there are tears
and there are cheers
as the end of chapter 8 is read out.
Great joy.
It seems like it's a great time to break
for the passing of the peace
before the rest of Romans is read out,
the rest of Paul's letter is read out to us.
But instead of greeting your brothers and sisters in Christ,
you just sit there.
You're mulling over the words
of the first eight chapters of Romans
and all that's accomplished in Christ.
You're not feeling as triumphant
and secure as the rest.
You remember that God had singled out
your ancestors Israel
as his special people in the Old Testament.
And God said that he would love them
and promised that he would not destroy them
in Hosea 11
and many places throughout the Old Testament.
But he did.
Ephraim kept on sinning
and Assyria came in 722 BC.
Babylon came and destroyed
the two tribes of the south in Judah
in 586 BC
and only a handful returned from exile.
And you hear this great promise
that nothing can separate me
from God's love
in chapter 8
and you start to doubt
the reliability
of God's word.
Can it be true
what Paul said
at the beginning of chapter 8?
Therefore there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Can those words be trusted
especially when
at the end of chapter 7 of Romans
He talks about the ongoing struggle
of sin
in the life of the Christian
which is real
and it is daily.
God condemned His people
for their sin in their past
and Paul says in chapter 7
that that's going to be my experience.
Is God going to get tired of me?
You want to believe
what Paul has written
about confidence
and assurance in Christ
but unsure if God
can be trusted
to keep His promises.
And then your thoughts
are interrupted
by the reader of the letter
starting at the beginning
of chapter 9.
I speak the truth
in Christ
I am not lying
my conscience confirms it
in the Holy Spirit
I have great sorrow
and unceasing anguish
in my heart
for I could wish
that I myself were cursed
and cut off from Christ
for the sake
of my brothers
those of my own race
the people of Israel
theirs is the adoption
of sons
theirs is the divine glory
the covenants
the receiving of the law
the temple worship
and the promises
theirs are the patriarchs
and from there is traced
the human ancestry of Christ
who is God over all
forever praised
Amen.
It's like Paul's been
reading your mind
what about them?
And then he says
it is not as though
God's word has failed
it is like Paul
knows what you're thinking
did God forget
His promise to Israel?
No
Did He take His word
back from His people?
No
It is not as though
God's word has failed
In chapter 9
verses 6 to 13
Paul backs up
this statement
that the word of God
has not failed
He says that
not all of the nation
of Israel
were God's chosen people
His true people
that is
what He says is
that being a true
Israelite
was not passed on
from ancestry
to ancestry
through
through being born
into the family
it is
through the promise
the covenant promises
that God made
to Abraham
right at the very beginning
being part of God's family
is based on being
chosen by God
not by my effort
or being born
into a nation
His argument
goes on
into verses
14 to 18
where Paul says
that it has always
been God's character
to have mercy
on whom He wants
to have mercy
and that God
is not answerable
to us
about the choices
that He makes
He is God
and I am not
forgotten
and it's then
at the end
of Romans 9
as the clincher
to Paul's argument
that God
has not forgotten
His word
that He quotes
from Hosea
in chapter 9
verse 25
He says
I will call them
my people
who are not
my people
and I will call them
my loved one
who is not
my loved one
Paul makes
the point
that God's love
for Israel
and the world
in Jesus
is not
some new plan
it was the plan
right back
in Hosea
before the judgment
came
God's plan
right back
then
was to love
all those
to whom He would
have mercy
both Jew
and Gentile
He is trustworthy
He has never
turned His back
on His promises
because
as Hosea 11
verse 9
says
I am
God
and to make
it clear
He says
I'm not
man
I'm not
like you
I am God
our assurance
of God's love
for us
in the Lord
Jesus
is based
on His
character
which is
supremely
seen
in the Lord
Jesus
on the cross
God
is not
like
me
God's
anger
is not
one
of His
intrinsic
character
traits
it is a
function
of His
holiness
against
the sin
of humanity
that is
God
is not
part of His
character
is not
that He's
angry
it's not
deep in His
heart
to be angry
it's a
function of His
holiness
which is
part of His
character
against human
sin
that is
He reacts
to human
sin
in anger
that's His
response
but love
is part
of His
character
that is
who God
is
God
is
love
that means
that where
there is
no sin
there is
no anger
and God
has dealt
with sin
in Jesus
and where
there is
no sin
there is
no anger
but there
will always
be love
because that
is who
God
is
God's
love
is part
of His
perfect
character
and is
not
generated
by the
loveliness
of those
who receive
it
get that
point
really
clear
God
is
love
and His
love
towards us
is not
generated
because we
are lovely
it is
generated
it is
self
generating
because He
is
love
He has
actually
not
changed
His
mind
about
His
promise
because
God's
love
does not
react
to my
sin
you see
if it was
up to me
this is
where I'm
different
than God
revenge
or justice
or the
breaking
of ties
would be
my
response
to such
treatment
and that
is where
God and
I are
different
if I
was God
I would
have long
changed
my mind
I would
have redrawn
my love
and I
certainly
wouldn't have
paid the
price of
redemption
for a
faithless
people
but I'm
a man
I'm
not
God
a man
that is
called by
my God
of love
to love
as He
loves
and so
I stand
here as
a man
and I
stand here
as a
father
and let
me tell
you I
really love
my
children
one of
the
you message
with my
kids and
you'll
experience
my
wrath
ungodly
wrath
probably
one of
the really
big things
that I
want for
my kids
is for
them to
feel secure
in their
relationship
with me
particularly
if they're
secure
they'll be
healthy
and they'll
be balanced
I want
them to
know the
security
of my
love for
them
but they
do not
always feel
it
I
still
remember
the
first
time
I
was
really
angry
with
one
of
my
children
and I
could see
the fear
in their
eyes
I could
see that
they were
feeling
insecure
in that
moment
they
weren't
confident
what
would
happen
at any
moment
because of
my
anger
I'm
not
God
they
question
my
love
God's
love is
not like
mine
because God
is love
and so I
must point
my girls
to him
who ensures
that they
will be more
than conquerors
through Christ
who loves
them
and as
for me
as a man
and a
father
my heart
will always
be in
tension
the tension
between my
constant awareness
of my
failure
and my
sin
and my
flaws
and God's
declaration
that I
am free
free from
sin
guiltless
because of
what Christ
has done
for me
and so I
must take
myself daily
to my
heavenly
father
and be
reminded
that he
loves me
with an
unchanging
love
his
assessment
of Steve
Jeffery
is not
based
on a
naive
assessment
of my
love
of my
character
he knows
how dark
my heart
is
but he's
called me
to be
his son
and he
ensures
that in
the Lord
Jesus
I will
be more
than a
conqueror
let's
pray
gracious
father
we thank
you for
your love
for us
God you
are worthy
to receive
all glory
and honor
not only
have you
created all
things you
sustain all
things but
we thank
you for
the Lord
Jesus that
through his
death and
his resurrection
he has
turned your
anger away
from us
so that we
might know
your love
in all its
fullness in
him
we thank you
that he has
paid the
complete debt
of our
sin
we thank
you that
he has
eternally
delivered us
from your
judgment
and so
father right
now we
remember what
you've done
for us
we thank
you that
what we're
going to
do right
now in
the Lord's
supper
that we
have this
bread we
have this
wine and
we pray
that as we
take them
that we
might remember
the cost
of your
love for
us in
the Lord
Jesus
and we
pray father
that you
would deeply
deeply
nourish and
feed us
by your
word
we pray
that the
bread and
this wine
might be a
symbol lord
of all that
you've done
for us
and may we
be deeply
assured of
your goodness
to us in
the Lord
Jesus and
we ask it
for your
sake
amen
friends
we're going
to distribute
these elements
to you in
your seats
and we
will eat
and we
will drink
together