Part four continues the series of videos that we began this morning at The VINE. For parts 1-6 follow the links below:
The Hosea Love Story: Part 1
The Hosea Love Story: Part 2
The Hosea Love Story: Part 3
The Hosea Love Story: Part 4
The Hosea Love Story: Part 5
The Hosea Love Story: Part 6
By Rick Phipps
A few definitions are in order to really help our understanding of what’s happening in Hosea…
Adultery…sexual unfaithfulness of a married person
Jesus would later redefines (Matthew 5:27) that in God’s standards lust by sight and heart counts.
Prostitute…to offer indiscriminately for sexual intercourse especially for money; to devote or corrupt for unworthy purposes; a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse especially for pay.
I give these definitions because it hit me just how low Gomer (Israel, people of God) had fallen. She (they) not only was a willing participant in adultery but also implied willing participant in prostitution. She was with another man (another God), not her husband (not their God), while still married (cared for, loved, desired by God) thus an adulterer (living outside the covenant with God). This man (sin, idols), as it says in 3:1, loved her (probably not a heart love but for sexual moneymaking, “what can you do for me kinda love”). However, their sin or lust, or just blindness to the sacredness of the marriage bed (true worship/respect for God), or maybe even the total lack of hope from such a great disconnection from God has Gomer involved in prostitution. And it would seem that is was a willing involvement. Sin has no boundaries, no restraints, no line where one can’t go any farther, it just keeps on calling one deeper and deeper into its abyss. So it would seem that Gomer had a lover but also a pimp (addictive sin; hopelessness). How lost she was…perhaps hoping that the next lover/customer would be the one to rescue her (this idol/god)? Bring her a love she fantasized about (provide an easy life)? Yet in the deepest darkness of her life who comes back for her? Hosea (God)…now it would seem that Gomer (Israel) was also past her money making prime for the amount Hosea paid for her, as one commentator remarked, ‘was pitifully small. Gomer was no longer worth much to anyone except Hosea’. Yet Hosea paid it! Hosea took her back…God’s use of Hosea paints a picture that no matter how low we sink He is willing to buy us back–to redeem us–and to lift us up again.
Like prostitution, any sin, once it has its teeth in us, takes extraordinary will and strength to escape. For it brings us down to a state of hopelessness, shame, a feeling that there is not way out, that this is ‘just the way my life is suppose to be,’ then justification chains one to it even more…
Romans 3:22-26: This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished–He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
So, when you are tempted to feel like we’re no longer worth anything to anyone, let alone God… know that Jesus paid the price to buy us back by His sacrifice on the cross. Now we stand in Christ as His’ redeemed.
by Adam Reiss
We often think obedience is a burden. There’s what we want to do THEN what we are told. We have our life separated into neat sections and subheadings; some containing desires; some our responsibility to God. Love sometimes includes a process of turning away and returning before we realize how intricately obedience to God and our desires interweave. The beauty in Hosea is God’s constant drive to get us back.
As Hosea’s wife was going elsewhere for something she could have purely gotten from him, so the Israelites strayed from the original Source. Hosea didn’t just forgive her, though. She didn’t write him a nice little note that got him to accept her back; he found her in prostitution and BOUGHT her back. His love for her was stronger than propriety and social convention.
With God, repentance is perfect and everlasting. As many times as we fall away, He is there to take us back. This is of course not to give us permission to sin but to realize the importance of obedience. It gives us a chance to see the beauty which God’s commands pour into our lives in our own time and in full understanding. We fall away and stumble and God does not wait for us to beg. He actively seeks us.
The natural metaphors in the last chapter are beautiful. God declares the abundance he has for those who obey him using the imagery of other botanical objects made by His hands. The trees he mentions are all so beautifully displayed in the open air, the breeze, and the sun while being perfectly rooted exactly where they need to be. In much the same way, God invites us to be rooted in Him.
Today’s Reading: Hosea 9-14
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This Weekend: Join us at The VINE at 9:15 AM on Sunday in the Chapel as Stacy Sanford brings us thoughts and a challenging word from Hosea.
Love is difficult… especially when it’s not reciprocated. It’s even worse when the love you extend is rejected, mocked, even taken advantage of. How do you respond? How far do you extend yourself? How do you hang on to hope that anything can eventually be any different?
As we continue our summer study series in Hosea, strong charges are brought against Israel in the next part of the story (Hosea 4-8). The people are indicted by God through the message of the prophet Hosea as having ignored God’s law, engaged in prostitution with foreign idols, as being unfaithful, without understanding, stubborn, rebellious, and arrogant. What a list! Who could imagine what it would take for God to continuing to love when so much had been done to destroy the covenant relationship that had been established between with the nation of Israel?
What kind of betrayal would it take for you to be pushed completely over the edge to a place where a relationship you have had seems irreconcilable? If anyone ever had reasons to give up, they seem pretty clear in this text as the unrepentant nation stands accused.
One of the most difficult and intriguing parts of this ordeal for Hosea, was that his own story paralleled what was happening with the nation of Israel. He was married to a woman who had so scorned his love for her, that he actually had to go and buy her back from a life of prostitution to which she had turned (see Hosea 3:2). In the midst of a huge amount of betrayal and rejection of the covenant of marriage, Hosea’s love still continued to hope, trust, and redeem. It’s an incredible picture of the heart of God and how far He is willing to go for the people He loves.
Just as Hosea’s own story was a constant reminder for him of how difficult and real this messy business of love and reconciliation really is, our own stories of our sin, rebellion, and even sometimes contempt for God’s love are also constantly in the foreground of our view on this whole situation. On our own, it seems there’s no way back. But God has made a way through Jesus. As we believe, trust and follow him we see how the words of Hosea 6:1-3 can actually be true…
“Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that cover the earth.”
Today’s Reading: Hosea 4-8
Key Verses: Hosea 4:1,6 Romans 9:25
Today marks the beginning of a journey that will take us through each of the minor prophets this summer (Hosea through Malachi). The truth that the “minor” prophets brought forth was anything but minor. The only reason they are called minor is that they are much shorter than the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, which are sometimes called the “major” prophets.
As we move through this study, we’ll have opportunities to hear from the voices of the prophets of old, and we’ll also have opportunities to hear testimony from voices of today and we’ll see in both how the truth of God’s word continues to challenge and transform lives. This week we are beginning with the book of Hosea. Approximately three days a week throughout the summer there will be blog posts that will help guide our reading and study together. On Sunday mornings’s at The VINE, after our week of reading and studying, we’ll engage together as a group in getting to the heart of the message of each book.
Recognizing the power of God’s work among his people, this study is a collaborative, effort and your participation is key. If you’re interested in signing up to research and write one of the weekly study entries as we go along, you’ll be able to do so at The VINE beginning this Sunday morning, and help will always be available along the way.
I’m so looking forward to the transforming power of the truth of God’s word shaping our lives together as we journey together this summer.
Nick
Introduction to Hosea:
Hosea was a prophet that lived and prophesied to the northern part of God’s divided kingdom of Israel (sometimes referred to as Ephraim), around the time just before they were defeated by the Assyrian Empire (755-715 BC).
Hosea is in essence about a painful love story. It begins with a personal illustration of Hosea own marriage relationship that involves his adulterous wife, who acted like a prostitute despite Hosea’s continual loyal faithfulness, passionate provision and continual pursuit.
At the time of Hosea’s prophecy, Israel had become pretty distracted from the heart of God. They had become greedy in the midst of prosperity, committed all kinds of injustices against the poor, and had turned to foreign idol worship, which Hosea referred to as adultery against the Lord their God. Throughout Hosea’s prophecy, we see very vividly the painful suffering love of the Lord for his people, even in the midst of their unfaithfulness. God’s fury, His jealousy, and His own passion for His people, are on display through Hosea’s words and through his life.
Hosea shows us that God’s concern for His people in the midst of their idolatry, sin, and rebellion are not just about some vague religious matter, but about something deeply personal. God doesn’t want to be involved in the lives of people in a distant impersonal way, but uses this incredibly powerful illustration of the love of a husband toward his wife to show how much He loves them.
Reading for Monday & Tuesday:
Read chapters 1-3 of Hosea which compare Hosea’s marriage to Israel’s relationship with God. Pay special attention to 3:1 which says, “The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress…” As you read, think about your own relationship with the Lord and how His grace, love and faithfulness are constant even in the midst of our wanderings.
As a reminder, the VINE will not meet this Sunday, May 26th.
The weekend schedule for Chapel Rock for May 26-27 is:
Saturday Evening May 25th
6:00 PM Worship Service
Sunday Morning May 26th
9:00 AM Brunch
10:30 AM Worship Service
A long day today resulted in completing every project that we set out to do this week. We’re so glad that a massive amount of painting is completely finished, a roof has been patched, and some fascia and guttering is back in place. The physical side of the week has been pretty demanding, but very rewarding, as the students have learned so much and worked so hard. The relational side of the week, and coming to grips with just how hard it is going to be to say goodbye, has perhaps best captured by the fact that several students have asked multiple times tonight if there’s any way we could stay another week! We spent the evening at a local favorite pizza place called Goose Pond Pizza with the girls and staff from Open Arms and rounded out the night with some Dairy Queen. After we got back to the Miriam home, we had a time of sharing our favorite moments of the week and some very special memories and kind words were exchanged. We laughed and cried and had a great time together wondering how it seems like just yesterday that we arrived. FInally this evening the entire living room became a friendship bracelet making factory as newly forged relationships continued to grow through conversation after conversation. Tomorrow morning, we’ll fight through the tears as we say our goodbyes, and then it’s off to Bloomington to celebrate Elexis’s birthday and do some rock climbing, and then home shortly after. We’ll be sharing all of the pictures and stories at 9:15 AM at The VINE this Sunday in the Chapel at Chapel Rock along with the spring break team that went to Guatemala last week. We look forward to sharing firsthand about all of the many experiences, challenges, growth, and learning moments of the week.
So, Zach, a middle school student on our team, has this stuffed squirrel that he brought with him that has no face. Apparently his dog literally ate the face off of his stuffed squirrel. It’s name is Steve (the squirrel, not the dog). Apparently the fact that the squirrel has no face, although slightly bizarre, has no bearing on the fact that Steve is very much appreciated and valued as a stuffed squirrel.
Before the week started many of us on our team had expectations of who we might meet here at Open Arms. We had prepped our team to know a little bit about the work that happens here, and had even heard some testimonies of some of the past students who have lived at Open Arms. We thought we knew what to anticipate, but the people we had envisioned that we would meet, still didn’t have faces. Now they do. Not only do they have faces, but we’ve gotten to know their names, their dreams, their hearts, and their passions… and we love them all the more for having allowed us to be able to enter in to their stories, to know them, to relate to them, to live with them for the week, to learn so much from them, and to love them.
Today we continued our painting efforts, which Steve Campbell, who among many things heads up maintenance around here said that it, “looked like a job done by professionals! ” We had some additional help this afternoon when Kathy, Lauren and Morgan Murphy drove down from Indy to assist us, and they even brought some great afternoon snacks that really hit the spot! We also started and completed one of our outdoor projects that led to students learning new skills with a circular saw and an air nailer. Our crew is simply amazing! Our day was rounded out when Ann Huebel came and led a really great time with the girls complete with the experience of a facial and skin care tips. Afterward we presented each girl with a little goodie bag that was appreciated by all, and tonight we spent a relaxing evening watching a movie and winding down after a long fun filled day.
Tomorrow we have our last big day of work ahead of us. We’ve been getting up a little after 6 AM each day and putting in some long work hours, but everyone is still excited to get going and push through to hopefully meet our painting goal for the week of six major areas of the Miriam house. There’s even talk from a few students of getting up even earlier to get a jump on the day! We can only hope that this enthusiasm carries forward beyond spring break… It just goes to show how much students can accomplish when the bar is set high, they are passionate about the mission, and they can see a direct impact on the lives for which they are serving.
We’ve learned a ton this week. We’ve learned to see a lot of things and people from a different perspective…even a faceless squirrel named Steve. We’ve laughed, and loved, and prayed, and learned, and have been challenged physically, emotionally and spiritually. Above and threw it all we’ve caught glimpses of the face of Jesus in the lives of our team, in the lives of the girls here, and in the amazing staff and all those who give of themselves for the sake of the mission of Christ here at Open Arms.
Today one of our students said, “I’ve learned this week that somebody would love to have my situation at home, even though there has been so much I thought was so bad.” It was an honest statement, one that didn’t come easy, and was truly a moment of vulnerability. Another student mentioned how much they often take for granted the simple pleasures and luxuries our lives are filled with, and as they’ve lived as a part of the community here in the group home at Open Arms this week, they’ve gained a great appreciation and respect for the girls here who so bravely face the challenges of each day with a smile and an eagerness to give and receive love, truly with “open arms.” Such have been just a few of the many ways our lives have been touched and will never be the same because of this week. Most all the students on our team have expressed how much they’ve enjoyed getting to know the girls here at Open Arms, and cherish the relationships that have already been built in just three short days.
Today our theme was image; specifically how we see ourselves, and if we’re willing to really look deeply at our lives and try to see the way that God sees us. We talked about how we are created in God’s image from Genesis 1:27 and how we are God’s workmanship, his handiwork from Ephesians 2:10. We had the opportunity to lead an afternoon bible study for the Turning Point Academy students beginning with the same theme and were able to present the simple Gospel message through, of all things, a Reese’s cup. You’ll have to ask Jennifer Burnette sometime about her great object lesson involving the classic peanut butter candy. We’ve had a lot of time to hang out, play some games, do some crafty projects (thanks to Rhena Crane & Creative Memories), and play a little basketball this evening. It’s been really great to share a bit of life with the students of Open Arms and with the resident staff and Marty and Shiela Corey, and it’s been really awesome to see the love that is shared with the students here and is the foundation of all that Open Arms is about. It’s obvious that God is in this place and among the work that is being done here in the lives of the students. We’ve been honored to be able to come alongside the great things happening here to serve and be encouragers.
The work has begun and is going fantastic. Who knew that teenagers could be so excited about wall paper removal? Today has been a full day of painting, conquering stubborn wall paper, and lots of time hanging out and bonding with the students here at Open Arms. Our theme has been centered around the phrase, “Be A Part of The Story…” and we’ve certainly seen ways big and small that we are joining our lives into the story that God is writing. We’re also having a great time enjoying the opportunities to share in the stories of one another’s lives. Of the seven students from Chapel Rock on the team, only two go to the same school, so it’s truly been a time of growth in getting to know one another as we serve together. For as diverse a group as God has put together in one place this week, his timing couldn’t have been more perfect… Open Arms just learned that their yearly state inspection of the group home is going to take place next week, so a fresh coat of paint on a good part of the facility along with all the other sprucing up that will happen this week, is going to aid greatly in helping show what great work is done here for students in the name of Christ. We appreciate your continued prayers as God continues to lead and work among us for the sake of His glory.
BRING. CHANGE. SHARE. 