Pressing on in the New Year

Matthew LaMaster

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Notes

Transcript

Big Idea

Tension: Why should we keep returning to the Lord?

Resolution: Because in giving us life and face, he is faithful and good to us.

Exegetical Idea: We should keep returning to the Lord because in giving us life and face, he is faithful and good to us.

Theological Idea: Christians repent because in giving us life and righteousness, God is both faithful and good.

Homiletical Idea: We should keep repenting because the Father is faithful to give us life and good to give us righteousness in Christ.

Big Idea: We keep repenting because God is both faithful and good to us in Christ.

Outline

Introduction: "Never again.” I find myself uttering this phrase when there is something or someone that I trusted, something that I thought was sure, something that I trusted in which lets me down. Maybe it is a friend who let me down, maybe it is a person I trusted in, maybe it is something I tried that I failed at. And I think all of us are always one step away from saying this about God. Maybe we’re living the Christian life, we’re going to church, we’re reading the Bible, and we go through a disaster, or something happens at church we’re not sure of, or maybe we’re caught nagging in the Christian life. Maybe something happens that we’re afraid of and it makes us anxious and fearful. And all we want to do is hole up under a blanket, and hide ourselves in a corner, and not come out again. And we want to know, why should I keep walking with the Lord? Why should I keep going to church, why should I keep reading the Bible?

Background for Hosea: Hosea’s call to marry a prostitute… rd. 5:15. Israel’s question was, why should we return?

We keep repenting

“return to the LORD” - that word is describing repentance.

cf. Hosea 14:1

define repentance - repentance is turning from sin to God.

Let us know - what kind of knowledge? This is a knowledge that learns for the sake of relationship. It is “loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind.” It is to learn things about God and embrace them. It is - in other words, faith.

Let us press on to know the LORD - Yet, this knowledge must be continual. It is not enough to learn facts about God, but it is a continual returning to the Lord to know again and again and again. It is seeking the Lord with eagenerss. It is the week in and week out coming to Churchness of the faith.

Illustration - Mountain Top experiences of the Christian faith vs. the faithful plodding of the Christian walk. Repentance and faith as the daily drumbeat of the Christian life.

The Christian life is made up of habits and patterns. It is made up of reading the Bible slowly day in and day out, and learning somethign about God and embracing it. It is a daily turning to God and away from sin. It is a weekly coming to church and receiving his preached Word and his body and blood, and

Why should I keep doing those things? Why should I keep returning to church? Why should I keep reading the Bible? Why should I turn away from my anxiety, my fearfulness, my worry, my lust, my anger, my wrath? Well, Hosea explains this to us...

because God is faithful and good to us in Christ

He has torn us that he may heal us, he has struck us down that he will bind us up.

torn… struck us down - These words are often paired together to describe a violent animal. Now you have to remember, Hosea is prophesying shortly before the nation of Assyria will come in and cart Israel off into exile. And what Hosea says is that it is not Assyria that is tearing Israel down, it is not Assyria that is striking them down, it is God himself. God is the one who is slaying Israel. God is the one who is bringing them to their knees.

“heal… bind us...” - But GOd is not an arbitrary, petulent, vengeful God. Rather, the reason God allowed the suffering of Israel, was so that he could bring them back. God allowed their suffering so that he could give them life. God tore them apart so he could knit them back together, he struck them down, so that he could bind them back up. God slew them so that he could redeem them from the pit.

Why is this? Because he is the God of life. And only he is the God of life. You see, Israel had so often run to Assyria for protection, and they were a terrible protector. (5:13-14)

Deuteronomy 32:39

And so often we are like Israel. We run to a thousand things to bind us up, when only God can do that. We run to a million things to give us life, when only God can give us life. And so often, GOd will allow the wells that we run to to parch our thirst to run out so that we will come to him, the only well of life. And the point of this is that our sufferings are meant to take our eyes off this world of death and to latch them onto the God of life.

How does he do this?

“After two days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us up” - How will God give us life when nothing else can? Through the resurrection. In the Old Testament, there is a string of passages that the God of life will give life, two of the strongest are:

Is 26:19

Job 19:25

And as a Christian, it is impossible to read this passage and to not see it as a prophecy about Christ. Hundreds of years before Christ, God promised that he was going to give life on the third day. As a Christian, I can find no firmer truth than this, that this happened on Easter morning. Because the same Spirit that the Father gives the Son, he gives to me. And if I am in Christ and he is in me, I can trust that if God brought him back to life, so he will do for me.

Why would he do that for me?

“so that we might live before him.” - Now this phrase of “living before me” has the idea of living in the presence of the King. So it is a possition of servitude, of refuge, and of protection. It is this position of being allowed to be in his presence. And I think it has this sense, that though we were removed from God’s presence because of our sins, he will provide forgiveness for us. I think it has this unmistakeable sense of God’s forgiveness. That he will no longer cast us from his presence, but that he will give us life so that we will live in his presence.

So all of this says that “We should keep pressing on to know the Lord, we should keep repenting because he will give us life and forgiveness in Christ.” But Hosea is interested in going deeper. Because Hosea wants us to look not just at this, but at teh character of the God who would do this. Which is why he continues in vs. 3...

“His going out is as sure as the dawn” - Here Hosea is saying that God’s going out is faithful. He is pointing to God’s faithfulness. God is faithful to save, he is faithful to resurrect, he is faithful to give life. He is faithful to forgive. You see, in your suffering you have never had a God who is as faithful as this God. No matter how much you push him away, no matter how much you run from him, no matter how much you let him down, no matter how often you allow yourself to be distracted from him, he will not let you down. He will not run away.

but he is not just faithful, otherwise the poem would stop there...

“He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” - Now, I think living here we don’t quite understand this, because we can count on the spring rains watering the earth. But in teh Middle East, the rains don’t always come. Sometimes they go for months or even years without sufficient rainfall. And what this passage is saying is that when God comes to us, it is good. It is refreshing. it is like a dry and desert land that soaks in the long sought for spring rains.

This poem is saying [BIG Idea Reveal]: We should keep returning to the Lord, because he is faithful and good to us in Christ.

The reason we keep returning to the LORD is because he is good. He is good, he does good things to us, he never stops being good. The reason that we keep reading our Bibles, the reason we keep coming to church, the reason we keep returning to the Lord even in the midst of our suffering, int eh midst of our pain, int he midst of our hope, is because he is good.

He is both faithful and good. It is not just that he is faithful, because that is not good news. If God is only faithful, then he coudl be faihtful to be angry or bitter or unforgiving, couldn’t he? But if God is not faithful and he’s good, then what’s to say that he won’t change tomorrow. No, he is faithful and good. He is always near to us, always promisng us life, always giving us himself, and that is always good. He is always forgiving, always kind, always good.

Application:

So let me make two applications this morning.

Keep pressing on to know God - In this new year, make a commitment to keep pressing on. Make a commitment to not lapse in BIble reading. Make a commitment to not stop coming to Church. Make a commitment to make small, daily, weekly habits that create a habit of knowing and embracing God.

Because he is faithful and good in Christ. But don’t lose sight of the right motivation. We don’t do these things out of fear, out of guilt, out of anxiety, out of a burden. We do these things because he is good, he always has been and he always will be.

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