The Relentless Love Of God, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

That's the price. You see, that's me or you standing in the slave market of sin. I have nothing to offer God. In fact, Paul says I am in enmity with God. I view God as my enemy.

He views me the same. I want nothing to do with God, but He wants something to do with me. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Gomer moved out. She moves out and leaves Hosea as the mother and father of three small children that very likely aren't even his.

And although Gomer had left his home, she never left his heart. Just imagine the gossip then. Hey, did you hear about it? Gomer left Hosea. Wow.

You know what? I never liked that guy. He's one of those prophets that tells everybody else how to live, what all of us should be doing. He can't even take care of business at home. Those aren't even his kids. And now she's sick of him and she moved out. I imagine there are others who really liked Hosea and probably said what you would have said.

If you're honest with yourself. He'd be better off without her. Good riddance. Notice that's what we would say. Good riddance. Glad she's gone. But Hosea sees things differently.

He sees a reality and he has a hope. It says in verse five of Chapter two, for their mother has played the harlot. She who conceived them has acted shamefully, for she said, I will go after my lovers who give me bread and make my water and my wool and my flax and my oil, my drink. She said, I love it when men take care of me.

It was my business. Hosea, though, has what I would call a dream for seven. She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them and she will seek them, but she will not find them. And then she will say, I will go back to my first husband for it was better for me then than now. She'll come back.

Now, what's interesting here is in. Verse eight, Hosea writes something and he says, for she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain and the new wine and the oil and lavished on her silver and gold, which they use for bail. She has moved to another man. He can't really take care of her.

Guess who's taking care of her? Hosea. Listen to what Haddon Robinson in his great sermon on Hosea, what he writes. He says after she left Hosea, she passed from man to man until she fell into the hands of a man who could not provide for her the basic necessities of life. In all that time, Hosea watched from a distance the downward path his wife had taken.

And finally, when he realized that she was living with a man who just could not provide the basics for a life, he went to the man. Now, this is speculation, obviously. And he said, are you the man that's living with Gomer, the daughter of the bomb? Well, what if I am? I'm her husband.

The man clutches his fist and is prepared for a fight. And Hosea said, no, you don't understand. I love my wife. And I wonder if you would do me a favor.

I wonder if you would take some gold and some silver and buy her the things that she needs. The man stares, he said, at the prophet and then sees the money in his outstretched palm and he begins to think, you bet there's no fool like this fool. He agrees to the preacher's plan. By the way, what do you think of Gomer? See, what do you think of her in this story? Because I need to tell you something. You're Gomer in this story. That'd be you. That'd be me. You see, she's thinking this man has provided all these wonderful things for her. But it was Hosea. We are willing to thank almost anybody and everything for the great things in our life.

We want to thank all the people and. But it's God. You see, we're not giving thanks to God at all. And there's something else, though, and that is that we live unfaithfully. Unfaithfully. Yeah, we may not be temple prostitutes, but how many of us fall on idols?

How many of us would do almost anything or make any kind of time or commitment to make more money? You know why? We worship it. You see, how many times have we been unfaithful to God?

How many? And yet God. Like Hosea. Says, I provide. So you might ask yourself the question, does God really love me like that? He does. That's his point. Yes, he does. He loves you just like that.

You see, once you see it in a way that you and I understand marriage and a bad marriage, it makes a lot more sense to us now. So Hosea. Comes up with a new strategy, and the reason for it is Gomer doesn't change.

She stays who she is. So in verse 14 of Chapter two, he comes up with a new strategy, one that God often uses in our life. In verse 14, it says, Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her.

That sounds really good. What does it mean? I'm going to let her alone. I'm just going to lure her into the wilderness and let her alone. And it sounds like it's going to be pretty good because it says then and then I will give her vineyards from there and the valley of Acor as the door of hope, and she will sing as in the days of her youth. And in the day when she camped in the land of Egypt, and it all sounds like, wait, he's given her good stuff.

Yeah, that's because we didn't take time to really look at the scripture. It says that he puts her in the valley of Acor. It's called the valley of trouble.

He says, I'm just going to take my hands off her and let her go. And she's going to end up becoming in the valley of Acor, the valley of trouble. Think about that. That's exactly the way that God deals with us on so many occasions. I'm just going to let you go ahead and do what you want to do. Go ahead. I'm going to let you loose in the wilderness and you'll be in the valley of Acor and you can do what you want to do, anything you want to do. But you'll reap what you sow.

You'll face the consequences of your actions. So what happened to Gomer? She sunk even further. She never changed. She never got it. She sunk even further and so she found herself with a man that said, you are useless to me. Even for all the things she brought to all those other men, apparently this man said at this stage, this woman is completely worn out. I want nothing to do with her. And so he decided to do something else with her.

Very common in the world. He's going to sell her as a slave. And so he's going to take her into the public center of a town, Samaria, the capital city, and he's going to put her up on an auction block. And because she's a woman, by the way, she will be stripped completely naked.

And she will stand on the auction block and somebody will buy her like you buy an animal. What's amazing about that is as the crowd gets together for the weekly auction, they notice for the first time that the prophet's in the crowd. They see him. He sticks out like a sore thumb. It's Hosea.

Just imagine what they're thinking. He came to see her get hers. She's so despicable. He came to see her. The ultimate degradation sold as a slave. Let's see what it says in Chapter three, verse one. Then the Lord said to me, go again and love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods. And he says in love raisin cakes, loving raisin cakes means that's one of the things you take and give as an offering to the pagan gods.

You love to make offerings to pagan gods. And then Hosea speaks for himself. And he says, so I bought her for myself for 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley. Could you imagine the scene? He's standing there and he's the first one.

He must have shocked everybody there. And they say, here's this woman. She's kind of worn out. A lot of miles on her. He says 10 shekels. And then somewhere else in the crowd, someone said 12 shekels. He says 15 shekels. And then someone else says 15 shekels and a Gomer of barley. 15 shekels and a Gomer and a half of barley.

Sold. Sold as a slave. Just imagine what everyone's thinking. What's he going to do to her?

But you know what? He didn't buy her to punish her. He bought her to redeem her. Wow.

Notice then what he says. And then I said to her, you shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man, so I will also be toward you. You never hear from her again. She changed.

Think of what he went through. She changed. It took the process of redemption for her to change. But that's how much he loved her. That's how much God loves you.

It's a relentless love. Turn with me to the New Testament to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1. Verse 18. In 1 Peter 1.18, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold or barley, he said, from your futile way of life, like Hosea had with Gomer, inherited from your forefathers, you and I were bought redeemed with the precious blood as of a lamb unblemished the spotless blood of Christ.

That's the price. You see, that's me or you standing in the slave market of sin. I have nothing to offer God. In fact, Paul says I am in enmity with God. I view God as my enemy.

He views me the same. I want nothing to do with God, but he wants something to do with me. And so the bidding begins. And what can we do to redeem?

The word redeem is the word agorazo or ex agorazo. It means the purchase in the slave market of sin. Someone's going to purchase me. And guess who it's going to be?

It's going to be the Son of God. With the cross. With his death.

Why would he do that? Because he loves me that much. How can you love the unlovable? It's exactly the way God loves us. Dietrich Orthorff says, though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, he loves us perfectly. He loves every one of us, even those of us who are flawed and rejected and awkward and sorrowful and broken.

It doesn't matter to God. He loves us. That's astounding. And that love means everything. Turn with me for a moment to Titus. Chapter two. And verse 14. Notice what Paul writes. He says, who gave himself. That's Jesus for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself.

A people of his own possession, zealous for good deeds. It took redemption to change the heart of Gomer. And I don't know about you, but for me, it took redemption that changed my heart as well. You see, if you're not overwhelmed with the greatness of God's love for you, you've missed something. It's the motive of our very existence.

Too many of us are in some kind of performance curve. Two lessons from this passage. The first lesson is for those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ.

And we say simply this. God does not love you. Because of what you do. God loves you in spite of what you do. God does not love you because of what you are. God loves you in spite of who you are. Nothing you can do to make God love you more than he does right now.

Nothing. And nothing you can do to make God love you less. You see, once you sort of get your head and your heart around that idea, the response has got to be exactly what God is looking for.

It would be love and gratitude and praise and thanksgiving. In other words, as Jesus said to the woman at the well, God is looking for, he is seeking worshippers. How could I not worship him? He loves me. And he is willing to pay the greatest price possible for me. And I brought nothing to the relationship.

There's a second lesson. And that is, maybe you've never really put your faith in Christ. Maybe you've never really been clear on that, that it's your faith and faith alone and Christ and Christ alone. You've never been able to take advantage of his redeeming work on the cross for you.

Let me say simply this. Without Christ, it isn't that God is lost in your life. It's that you're lost. And God has pursued you. He pursued you up the mountain of Calvary. You see, he pursued you into the grave. He pursued you out of the tomb. And boy, I would pray right now he's tapping you on the shoulder this very day.

He's whispering in your ear, I love you. I've redeemed you. I want a relationship with you. Let me appeal to you with another picture different than Hosea's. God gives us metal from a mine. And God gives us trees from a forest. And then God gives the miner the skill to go to the mine and dig up the metal. And then God gives the lumberjack skill to go to the forest and cut down the tree.

And when the metal was mined and the tree is cut down, a blacksmith shows up and forms it into some spikes. And then a carpenter shows up and takes the tree and forms it into a cross. And when the cross is ready, God comes in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he stretches out his arms on the arms of that cross.

And he allows those soldiers to pound with cruel violence those spikes into his hands and his feet. And then they take and they stand up the cross. In the six hours on the cross and the three hours of excruciating suffering, Jesus Christ is crying out, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And just imagine from the Father's point of view, he is pouring out the holy wrath of God on the perfect Lamb of God. As a father, why would he go to the cross? Why would he pour out the wrath on him? Because God loves you.

You see, because he loves you, even when you're not lovable. The great passage I'll close with is Jesus Christ. Let me simply read John 3 16.

I want to read it for you just a little bit differently. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. It's his words and his words alone.

But I'm going to substitute a couple of words because we're so familiar with this. Jesus says to Nicodemus and to us. For God so loved you. For God so loved you that he gave his only begotten son me. So that whoever believes in me. Shall not perish. But have everlasting life. That's about as simple a form of the gospel that exists. Man, if you do not know Jesus Christ in a personal way, what an opportunity.

He's crying out to you, I love you. You see, it's not a matter of how good you are or how bad you were. It's just a matter of whether you're willing to receive his love. I can promise you this, when you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I can promise you this. Your sins are forgiven, you've been born again into the family of God.

Nothing will ever change that. And you'll have something in your life you never even dreamed about. You'll have a life that means something. A life of purpose. A life that can be filled with peace and joy and hope. Jesus called it an abundant life.

All you have to do is receive it as a gift. God loves you. He always has. He always will. Just pray. Father, I think that these words, God loves you, for some of us become so superficial we hear them all the time.

And so they don't mean much to us. I would pray that the story of Hosea and Gomer personifies that love in such a way, in a real way, that we see the kind of loyal love that you have for each and every one of us. Father, I thank you that your love can do for me what Hosea's love did for Gomer. Father, I thank you that I don't bring anything to this relationship and you bring it all. But I can promise you this because you loved me so much to give your very life for me. I love you so much that I give my life for you. This is my prayer in Christ's name, for His glory and for our good.

Amen. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.