Text: Hosea 5:15-6: 3
How has your week been? Some joys? Have there been sorrows? Someone have a birthday here? Was it a good one? Any travel? How has your week been? I got my taxes done. I am relieved but more than relieved. Not only did I get it behind me, this year we are get a nice refund. Now If you are like my friends in the service, the next thing I’ll hear is this. We’re going out afterwards and pastor is buying. How has your week been?
Well just Imagine someone videoed our lives this past week. Everything was covered, somehow even our thoughts, attitudes, our reactions to the people around us. Imagine we could play that back. What would we also see about this past week? We have not loved God with our whole heart and life. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. Far from it. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
So we begin most all of our services with an invitation. Not an easy one. Rather it’s a hard thing. It ought to be. So hard that some are offended by it. We are invited to confess our sins before our God. And then we’re invited to hear some precious good news. We call it absolution. That by the shed blood of Jesus we have forgiveness and hope.
Those words of confession are good. They are true and right. Yet we can make them all wrong. We have an example of that here today. The words of the Israelites sound so good. Come, let us return to the Lord. He will heal us. He will build us up and restore us. Come let us return to the Lord. But the Lord knew the heart of those that spoke them. He’d heard this song before. He tells them what he thinks of their words. Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.
But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Their hearts were wrong, but their words are good.
Come, Let us Return to the Lord
I. Come recognizing the nature of your sin
II. Come with a penitent heart
III. Come, assured of God’s healing, restoring love.
When you read chapter 4, you get a terrible sense of how foul Israel had become. I don’t want to spend our time this morning painting that ugly picture. But what we do need to take note of is the Lord’s response. Just before our text he pictures himself like a lion coming to tear his prey to pieces. Then he says here, I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt.
The Lord tells his people something important here. The pain, the trouble you are suffering at the hands of your enemies is not just about your enemies. It’s about me. I added that trouble to your sin. I sent it, he tells them.
Think about that. Think about the sins we have brought here this morning. I think of our sins of neglect and abuse. What happens when you neglect an important person in your life. Your spouse, your child. That relationship suffers. What mushrooms can pop up in that garden? Resentment. Bitterness.
Or how about abuse? Abuse alcohol or food, what’s going to happen? You can lose your health, your license. Abuse the trust of someone in your life, that someone may want to be done with you.
That kind of thing hurts. Well here the Israelites were only thinking about those consequences of their sin. How do we get out from under them? But where are those painful consequences pointing us? Who has added them to our sin? He’s calling. He’s waiting for us to admit our guilt and come.
God speaks here of one of the worst consequences. The Lord was going to walk away from his people. This makes me think of our immune system. It normally fends off all kinds of awful viruses and germs. But if a person gets AIDS that protection is gone. It makes them vulnerable. Israel was about to experience what it’s like to have God walk away with all his blessings. He was about to walk away and let them sit on a pin cushion of misery.
But notice why. A few weeks ago I went to the dentist. I had neglected my teeth for too long. The dentist found a place she needed to go deeper. This might hurt a bit. You’re telling me. It hurt. Why? She was getting at the problem. The hurtful consequences of our sin are pointers sent by God. They help us to see the nature of our sin.
There is one place we can’t help but see it. At the cross of God’s own Son. When we think of Jesus on the cross, God’s love is front and center. Look what God did for you and me! But there at the cross, we see something more. One of our hymns says it well.
If you think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great
Here you see it’s nature rightly, here it’s guilt may estimate
Mark the sacrifice appointed; See who bears the awful load
Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God
CW HYMN 127: 3
So Come. Come recognizing the nature of your sin and then Come with a penitent heart.
God looked at his people and did not see that. He saw no sorrow over their sin. In other words what they expressed was not repentance. It was more like. He’s upset with us. He made our life miserable. But we know him. We’ll bring some sacrifices. We’ll pray some of the psalms. We’ll go see the priest. Then God will get over it. He’ll come around.
But repentance is not play acting our sorrow or just going through some religious motions. There’s no use bowing our heads or getting down on our knees unless our hearts are bowed in sorrow. There’s no use confessing that sin unless I’m ready to say to God I want to be done with it.
That makes repentance hard. It’s not on our list of 10 favorite things to do. For It’s humbling. It’s not happy, happy joy joy. For to acknowledge the Lord is to take to heart that our holy God hates sin. And I am a sinner. That’s hard. It’s hard to look at the cross of my Savior and see my part in that. But that’s what we need to do. To consider God’s will for our lives and how far we have fallen short. For then our confession will be more than just words. More than just ritual. Come, let us return to the Lord. And come with a penitent heart.
But please don’t misunderstand. Repentance is not about saying to God, look how repentant I am. We earn nothing from God by our sorrow. No, we confess, we come to God admitting a terrible need. How did the tax collector put it in Jesus parable? God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
And what can we know when we come? What can we know when we return? Not this. I think of a judge in his courtroom. A man is brought before him for the third time. You’re here again, Mr. Jones, I see. I don’t think that judge is minded to be merciful. But what can we know when we come to our Lord seeking his mercy. What can we know today as we come one more time before him? In Jesus, God’s Son, we come before a throne of grace. So Come, assured of God’s healing, restoring love.
These words are good even though they were spoken by impenitent people. There is real comfort here for us even though they were looking in the wrong place. I want to walk you through this.
He will bind up our wounds. My wife is a wound care nurse. She sees some badly infected wounds that need special care. The Israelites thought their wound was what their enemies had done to their land and people. Made their life tough. But they should have thought of how God’s law leaves us. It lays open a gaping wound of guilt before God. Worse than any my wife sees. But here is the comfort. When we come, he will bind up our wounds. Jesus will bind them up in his forgiving love. For by his wounds we are healed.
They also said. God will restore us. Again they were thinking about their country. Peace, safety, prosperity. It’s ok to pray for such things. But what they really needed restored was their relationship with God. They had run that relationship over a cliff. There may be times where it feels like we’ve done the same. There’s no hope for me. Do not be afraid. Come. Repent. He will restore us. In Jesus, all can be well again.
Then finally, “As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” As surely as the sun, as surely as the rains The rains in Israel were a lot more reliable than ours these days. The Lord will come. They wanted him to come and give them victory in battle. He’s come and given us so much more. His body and blood, his very life to bring us back to God.
So now it is my privilege to say to every repentant heart who come, who has returned. In the name of Jesus, your sins are forgiven. Go in peace. Amen.