True Repentance

 “True Repentance”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Feb 2, 2014

Text: Hosea 5&6 // Series: Hosea: Lost & Found

If you grew up in the late 70’s or early 80’s, you might remember a certain series of books.  I’m going to read out some of the titles and I want you to shout out the name of the series.  The Cave of Time. House of Danger. Your Code Name is Jonah.  Space Patrol.  Any guesses on the series?  Choose Your Own Adventure.  For those unfamiliar with the series, the 184 different titles from the original series are all written in the second person so you become the protagonist.  You might be a detective or an astronaut or a mountain climber or a spy.  And every one of the books has a very specific formula.  After reading a few pages, you as the reader are faced with two or three options, and depending on your choice, you go down a particular storyline until you come to another set of choices and so and so on.  (Hence the series title).  This leads you forward and back and forward and backwards in the book.  “If you say yes to the invitation, turn to page 36.  If you say no, turn to page 98.”  There are always multiple endings – some are good; some you die in.  So I would always keep my finger in my last choice set so that I could go back and make a different choice if I didn’t like where the storyline was going.  Do you remember these books?  I was hoping some of you would because between 1979 and 1998 they sold more than 250 million copies and I certainly got one out of the Dawson Creek public library every Saturday for many years.   

Here at Jericho Ridge in the months of January and February we are going through the Old Testament book of Hosea.  And if I had to choose a metaphor for this intensely graphic, intensely emotional, 14 chapters tucked away in the Minor Prophets, I would say that to me, Hosea reads like a choose your own adventure book.  Part of this is the literary structure.  If you started at page 1 of a Choose Your Own Adventure book and read it straight through, left to right, it wouldn’t make any sense!  The same is true of Hosea.  It’s very choppy!  The book changes images, moves from the past to the future then back to the present.  Who is speaking in the book and who they are speaking to changes multiple times.  And since Hosea is written over the course of a couple of decades, some of it feels highly repetitive.  At points, God lays out options and choices for the people – “If you want to repent now, turn to Hosea 6.  If not, stay in chapter 5”. 

To me, this structure makes the book a bit confusing to navigate. But once you get past Hosea’s personal story in chapters 1 and 3, the basic outline kind of repeats itself.  And it is kind of like a Choose Your own Adventure book because God keeps giving the people of Hosea’s day choice after choice to demonstrate true repentance.  But as is often the case in our lives and with the people in Hosea’s day, it’s not always a happy ending.

When he took us through chapter 2, Danny pointed out that Hosea reads a bit like a court case or legal drama and that is also a helpful analogy.  The basic outline that kind of repeats itself reads like this…

1. WARNINGS: God accuses the people (4:1-19) of doing wrong

As Pastor Keith mentioned last week, it can sometimes be a bit tricky to figure out exactly what God is so upset about.  But God is using the enacted parable of Hosea’s life and his experiences with an unfaithful wife to make the point that His people have been unfaithful to Him.  They have engaged in deception, religious activities without any heart. They have perverted justice. They have divided hearts when they come to pray and much, much more.  So God lays it all out on the table with Hosea as his prosecuting attorney.  But the people don’t share God’s view of their actions.  They think they are OK – that they haven’t and are not doing anything particularly wrong.  So God not only warns them, He also follows through.  Here the metaphor is a lovingly clear parent who follows through. 

2. CONSEQUENCES: God punishes them (5:1-14)

The people experience the full weight of natural & divine consequences for their actions.  Grab your smart phone or your Bible and look with me at some of the verses in Hosea 5.  Let’s start in verse 1.  Speaking to the leadership of the nation, God says through the prophet Hosea “Judgment has been handed down against you.  For you have led the people into a snare by worshipping idols.  You have dug a deep pit, but I will settle with you for what you have done.”  Payday is coming, says God.  You cannot get away with intentional and willful and flagrant disobedience against God forever.  You may get away with it for a very, very long time but in the end, God will punish those who persist in doing evil and who do not repent.    

Look a few verses later in Hosea 5:4 – “Your deeds won’t let you return to your God.”  Pastor Keith highlighted this verse last weekend when he reminded us that sometimes we need to sit in the mud and muck that we have created and face up to the consequences of our actions and choices.  And unless we are willing to change our deeds, then it doesn’t matter what is coming out of our mouths, God isn’t interested and the consequences are still coming.  Hosea is an intense book with an intense picture of God.  The picture that emerges is a loving but fair and firm parent who has had enough with the stupid, long-term behavior of his daughters and sons and so He draws a line in the sand allows their choices to play themselves out.

So here’s what happens. In chapter 5:8 there’s a ton of military language – Sound the alarm, raise the battle cry, lead on into battle, etc, etc. 

The reason that language is there is that there is that at this moment in history, the Israel does something really stupid. They get involved in what is known by historians as the Syro-Ephraimite war [painting].  This war occurs between 734 -732 BC and you can read about it in 2 Kings 16 & Isaiah 7.  Here’s the Coles notes on that conflict as outlined in Gary Smith’s helpful commentary: “At that time Rezin king of Syria joined Pekah king of Israel in attacking Ahaz king of Judah.  They wanted to replace Ahaz or force him to join their coalition against Tiglath-Pileser III and his Assyrian army.  After Rezin & Pekah’s forces killed 120,000 of Ahaz’s troops and took 200,000 people captive (2 Chronicles 28), Ahaz asked Tiglath-Pileser III to come and rescue him from his adversaries.  After the Assyrian King defeated Syrian and Israel, he required a heavy tax from Ahaz” (101). 

In other words, this went really, really badly for everyone.  Their little war ended up bankrupting the country and costing them their national independence. It is almost as if God said to the people “oh, you want to turn to other people for help instead of to me?  How’s that working out for ya?”  We’ll talk more about why having divided loyalties is so detrimental to our spiritual lives that in a few weeks but for now, I wanted you to hear the context of these judgments that fall on Judah and Israel.  Listen to Hosea 5:9 “One thing is certain, Israel, On your day of punishment, you will become a heap of rubble.”  Or verses 11-13 “The people of Israel will be crushed and broken by my judgment because they are determined to worship idols.[f]

12 I will destroy Israel as a moth consumes wool.

    I will make Judah as weak as rotten wood.

13 “When Israel and Judah saw how sick they were,

    Israel turned to Assyria—

to the great king there—

    but he could neither help nor cure them….” So God says in 5:15    

“I will return to my place until they admit their guilt and turn to me.  For as soon as trouble comes, they will earnestly search for me.”

This kind of language is jarring for us – that God would keep His distance or would withdraw is something we don’t think about very often.  I wonder if we are accustomed to or over-familiar with the ‘safer / softer’ side of God’s character.  We focus on his unending love, His compassion, His healing mercy.  We sing about those parts of His interactions with us.  We pray using that framework.  We don’t like to think that we may reach a point in our lives where it is too late for us to turn to God because He has left the building, so to speak.  We prefer to imagine God in the story of the lost sons that Pastor Keith referenced last week: a Father who is longing, waiting.  Looking each day for His prodigal daughter or sons to return.  This image is different, isn’t it?  This is picture of a God who allows you and I to feel the full weight or consequences of our actions.  There’s not too many worship songs written about that, are there?  

This helps us to see Why God is so upset.  What has happenedhere is that actions have turned into habits.  And habits have turned into patterns.  Hosea isn’t talking about the one-time that you sinned and then God freaked out and left.  No.  He is addressing those habitual sins.  Those inclinations of your heart that develop overtime where your life begins to become so self-sufficient that you think you don’t need God anymore.  Or where your heart begins to point away from Him so that you wouldn’t recognize God if you saw him.  Your choices to do wrong have become so entrenched, that they have become habits and they now seem like a normal part of life. 

Some of your are in that place today and it should concern you deeply that it doesn’t concern you.  You are selfish and greedy and you don’t notice it anymore that you don’t give any money away to help the poor.  You are online so often viewing material that is inappropriate that you don’t even see it as inappropriate anymore.  You are in such a habit of bending the truth that you don’t even call it lying anymore.  When you have reached that place, you are in a very, very, very dangerous position, friend.  Because God is ticked off and you don’t even know it anymore!  You have played fast and loose for far too long and one day, when you wake up and realize how sick and how needy you are, you had better hope and pray that it isn’t too late.  This is sometimes whey God allows trouble into our lives – to wake us up so that we will seek Him again.  Because God highest interest is not making you happy.  He is deeply and passionately committed to making you Holy and to continually shaping your character and your actions into the likeness of his Son Jesus.  So I plead with you to let Him do that work if you are off-course today.  You might say “how do I do that?”  That’s where I love the language of Hosea 6.  We’ve already talked about how God has issued warnings, and how He sometimes He lets us experience the weight of consequences of our choices.  But there is always a third note that sounds in the book of Hosea. It is as if we have come to a low place in the choose your own adventure part of the book and now people are ready to hear about true repentance.  They have come to their senses and they begin to recognize that all along, God has been there

3. WAITING: God promises hope if they return (5:15-6:6)

Listen to the gentle and passionate plea Hosea makes in 6:1-3 [1 slide]

God stuff, right?  A clear and warm invitation and reminder that if and when we turn back to God, He will respond to us.  It’s a guarantee.  Just like the sun comes up every morning.  Just like it rains in Vancouver every spring (or every Nov – March).  You can count on it, Hosea says.  When you press on to know God, when you make a commitment to returning to Him, He is there. 

But here again is the fascinating part to me.  God’s response in 6:4-6…    

It is almost as if God says “What am I going to do with you people?  I’m not so sure your turning back to me is going to last.  You may choose your own adventure again.  But if it is going to last, here’s what I need to see.  True Repentance.  And this is what I love – God is abundantly clear.  Just like the prophets have been clear about the problem, and the people have clearly experienced the consequences of their actions, God is not clear about the pathway of true repentance.  And He invites them and you and me to walk in it.  God’s request is simple: If you are truly sorry, show me!  Your actions speak louder than your words.  Get to know me, don’t just put on a little religious pantomime every 7 days.  I love the way that last part reads in the Message translation: God says “I’m after love that lasts, not more religion. I want you to know Me, not go to more prayer meetings.”  Here in Hosea, we have a clear pathway laid out for us whenever we are ready to return to God.  This is true repentance.  I’m going to use an image to help us remember what this pathway of true repentance looks like: 

1. HEAD: Realizing that we should be sorry – Hosea’s role was to help the people recognize that what they had done was wrong.  .  This is the first step on the road to healing and repentance.  We need to admit our guilt before the Almighty and before others.  If you don’t or can’t see that you are sick, you will not seek out a doctor.  So it begins up here.  Then it moves from our head to our mouth:   
2. MOUTH: Saying that we are sorry – those of you who are parents know the importance of this step.  When your kid hits another kid, they don’t just need to realize that they are sorry, they need to say it.  Can you hear the echoes of the language of salvation here? Not only do you come to a place of believing that Jesus is Lord, but you confess it with your mouth. But these two lead to a movement down
3. HEART: Feeling genuinely sorry.  For you actions. True repentance isn’t solely about our emotions but it does touch them. 

Look at 6:6 – the NIV translation of mercy is weak.  The word is an emotional one: God wants love.  Consistent, covenantal devotion toward Him.  Feelings of fidelity.  But it doesn’t stop or frankly start here in our hearts with our emotions.  The big message of Hosea 5-6 is that actions speak louder than words…  You can’t just realize you should be sorry, or even say you are sorry, or feel sorry…  You need to actually change your ways. Act differently!

4. HANDS: Acting as if we are sorry

This is the root of God’s skepticism in 6:4-6…  The people are so steeped in their actions, which have turned into habits which have become patterns that God is saying until you change at that level, you’re not really sorry.  You see, just like rebellion isn’t a single decision, so to true repentance is not picture as a single, momentary decision but as pressing on to know God through regular, intimate relationship with him.  God has no interest in people who participate in a few religious services and who’s regular lives do not demonstrate any significant transformation.  God wants our heart and soul, not just our lips and our worship songs.  If we don’t invite God by His Holy Spirit to change our behaviours, we haven’t really truly repented.      

So this brings us to a place of looking at our own lives and response.  For some, you may have engaged part of this process, but there may be missing links in the journey.  You may have started into this process – perhaps even for the first time today.  Coming to a place in your head where you recognize and are willing to acknowledge something in your life as sin.  The message of Hosea 6 is that whatever you do, please don’t stop there!  If you just mentally asset to what you are doing is wrong, you are only doing mental gymnastics and you are fooling yourself that you have repented.  You have to engage the rest of the process.  If you are coming to God for the first time, you might say “I am willing to admit that I have screwed my life up pretty badly.  I need You to take control.”  But again, the process doesn’t and can’t stop there.  You need to confess with your mouth.  This is what the book of James is talking about when it says “confess your sins to one another and be healed”.  It’s not that I as a fellow human being have the authority to forgive you, it’s that there is freedom and power when it comes out into the open.  This is the power of our 4 quarters groups for guys or a trusted spiritual friendship.  I sit with a good friend every two weeks and one of the things we do is fess up to each other about areas of sin in our lives.  That might be an action step for you today – you may need to verbalize out loud to a trusted friend or someone here today on our prayer team areas in your life that you want God to pour his mercy and grace and forgiveness into. 

Then we come to the tricky and fickle part – our emotions.  And here’s where Hosea gets interesting because he always links these with a surprising counter-part: our actions.  We can’t feel sorry unless we act sorry and as we act as if we have repented, then we sometimes begin to feel as if we are forgiven.  So here’s another response that may be true of you here today.  You may be in a place where you have truly repented.  Your actions demonstrate it, but you still FEEL unforgiven.  You walk into a place like Jericho and you think to yourself “I get how God would forgive these people.  They seem to have it altogether.” But you feel like you walk around outside of the reach of Grace.  You’ve mentally and verbally repented but you don’t feel forgiven and so you walk around as if you have a “Scarlet A” pinned to your back.  Some of you need to come for prayer ministry this morning in this area.  If you have repented and God has forgiven and others around you have forgiven you, now it’s time for you to forgive yourself.  To allow grace to apply that true repentance to the deepest parts of your heart.  I John 3:20 says “Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything”

But for all of us, when it comes to repentance, actions speak louder than words.  True transformation is not a transient affect… It touches us deeply and changes us.  And friends, this is the wonder of grace.  Because God is in the business of calling us to admit our guilt, to earnestly seek Him with our heads, our mouths, our heart and our hands.  And when we engage in this way, we demonstrate that we understand and are living in a place of true repentance.  Let’s pray together as we respond to God.