This is one day when our nation pays special attention to the importance of motherhood.
Many of you have planned some special way to observe this day with a meal, a gift, or a visit. And it is wonderful that you can do that. I also recognize that Mother’s Day is not easy for a lot of people for various reasons: a death in the family, a difficult relationship, or maybe the inability to have children as one man told us last week.
Many pastors puzzle over what kind of a sermon to preach on Mother’s Day. As I was preparing for today’s message, I ran across some advice for pastors from some blog entries of young mothers. (http://carynrivadeneira.com)
One said, “So much of the Mother’s Day hoopla suggests that every mom is the same and that all we need is a good brunch once a year to make us happy. They all work together to create this dreamy, perfect view of motherhood. So if you don’t fit in to the ideal model of motherhood, the sermons end up being a reminder of how not like “all the other moms” you really are.
Another woman gave this advice to pastors: “Say “Happy Mother’s Day” and then preach the sermon that God spilled into your heart and head. Don’t make it about Mother’s Day. Where the Holy Spirit guides you is where it needs to go and what mothers and fathers and non-moms and non-dads and kids and old people and singles and whoever else is sitting there needs to hear.”
That sounded like good advice, so first of all, Happy Mother’s Day.
And now I want to turn to the message God has for us today.
Broken Covenant
As most of you know, Sue and I have been preaching through the books of the Bible and today we come to the Old Testament prophet Hosea, who uses the tragedy of his own broken home to get his message across. He is able to speak out of his personal experience of a broken heart to portray the way God felt when His people betrayed his trust and broke their promises.
Just this past week we talked with a young man who thought his relationship with a woman was leading to marriage. In fact, they had begun to plan their wedding. And then he found out that she had been unfaithful. So he broke off the relationship.
If you have experienced betrayal, broken promises, and a love that has gone cold, you understand the pain that God feels when His people walk away from their covenant with Him.
A covenant is an agreement between two parties about the future of their relationship. God invites people into a relationship of blessing with him. And we know that God is always faithful, but his people are not.
Yet, as we see from our study of the Bible, the Lord cannot simply cut his people loose from his covenant. God is torn between the need to point out the failure of his bride and the desire to restore the intimacy that once was theirs. Intimacy can flourish only when the lovers are knit together by integrity, commitment, and love. So this book of Hosea uses this human story to help us understand the heart of God.
Israel’s Failure
Hosea lived some 700 years before Christ. He was a citizen of the Northern Kingdom at the same time the prophet Isaiah was living in Jerusalem. Hosea lived in turbulent times. During his prophetic career, Israel had six kings in just over 20 years, and four of them assassinated the king ahead of them so they could become king. On top of that, a brutal nation, Assyria, invaded Israel in 722 B.C., deporting many of its citizens.
But the most serious problem in Israel wasn’t political – it was spiritual. Economic times were good, but this prosperity led to moral decay and Israel started to run around on God, flirting with foreign gods, bowing down at strange altars. This was serious business. The Covenant People had broken the covenant. They had gone back on their promises. They had not only broken God’s law—they were breaking God’s heart. We see it expressed in Hosea 2:13: “(Israel) decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after other lovers, and forgot me, declares the Lord.”
Hosea’s Family
Remember, a covenant is an agreement between two parties about the future of their relationship. But if one party does not keep its side of the relationship, that voids the covenant. We know that God is always faithful, but his people are not. And that is what happened to the people of Israel.
So, how can God communicate the seriousness of unfaithfulness to them? Here is where Hosea the prophet comes in. Remember that a prophet is one who conveys to the people a message from God. God asks Hosea to do a very difficult thing. He commands Hosea to marry a woman who would become a prostitute as an example of God’s relationship with Israel. Listen to 1:2.
God is painting a picture of unfaithfulness and He is doing it through Hosea’s marriage. Hosea was to demonstrate God’s patience and love while his wife Gomer was being unfaithful. It’s not clear whether Gomer was already a prostitute when they married or became one later. And in the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter.
As this sad love story unfolds, we see that three children were born into this home. It’s clear that the first child was theirs together. Verse 3 says that she bore Hosea a son. The births of the other two do not say Hosea was the father, so the assumption is that they were born out of wedlock.
You may think you have heard of kids with weird names today, like Apple or Knox or Ocean or Dweezil or Nevis. Or how about the couple from New Zealand who named their daughter Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii? But nothing beats the names of the three children in this chapter. The fact that God told Hosea what to name them tells us that their names were important to the story. Here they are.
The first son was named Jezreel. This was actually the name of a valley where the people of Israel, instead of obeying God, took on their own agenda. As a result, God allowed political instability to overtake them, so this name means “God scatters.” And that is what would happen to Israel, and did happen, because they pursued the course they were on. His name serves as a reminder that if God’s people are going to be faithful, they should pursue God’s purposes, God’s agenda.
Next was a daughter with a name that meant “no pity.” The root meaning of this word pity has to do with the love and compassion that a mother shows her children, but the name of this second child was a reminder that God was not going to show Israel compassion anymore. It is a reminder that God only puts up with our “garbage” for so long. When we are unfaithful to God, we should expect God’s discipline and God will do whatever is necessary to get our attention.
The third child was named “not my people”. In other words, because of their unfaithfulness, God is suspending the special relationship he has with his people and they have become like all the other nations of the world with no special status. They have broken their covenant with Him.
Remember, A covenant is an agreement between two parties about the future of their relationship. And we know that God is always faithful, but his people are not.
Modern Covenant Breakers
The names of these children were mighty strange. But even stranger today is the idea that many people seem to have that they are God’s special people when, in fact, their attitudes and actions don’t line up with God’s standards. Last Wednesday evening when we studied this passage, we talked about examples of how that happens today. I’d like to mention two others. Both have been in the news.
• Torture. As you know, the topic of torturing terrorists to get information has been in the news lately. I was shocked last week when I read a syndicated column by Leonard Pitts about a survey of American attitudes toward torture. I wasn’t surprised that 49% of Americans believe that torture is sometimes justifiable, but I was surprised at who those people were. According to the survey, people who call themselves Christians were more likely to support the use of torture. In fact, the more they went to church, the more likely they were to support torture. I asked myself, how could this be? How could people who claim to follow Jesus be seduced by the attitude of revenge and reprisal when Jesus clearly asks us to pray for and to love our enemies? In my book, torture is not a good way to show love.
• Hypocrisy. Secondly, as pastors, the number one excuse we hear from people who don’t attend church is that too many Christians are hypocrites. Unfortunately, there is some truth in their accusation. How is it that promises and vows have become so meaningless? People sign contracts and then run off or change their names or do other dishonest things so they don’t have to pay their bills. People make promises in marriage that last only until they meet someone they like better or someone who has more money. Or when people are baptized they covenant with God to serve him faithfully in the church, but then don’t line up their priorities to match their promise.
Many of you probably read about the student at a Baptist school in Findlay who says he plans to attend his girlfriend’s prom at the public high school even though the rules of his school forbid it, rules which he signed last fall. He could be suspended and have his graduation delayed if he goes through with his intentions because the school handbook forbids dancing, hand-holding, kissing, and rock music. (The Findlay Courier, May 8) This story raises two questions for me. 1) Why would you sign an agreement you don’t intend to keep? And 2) how did this story get into the national news?
I’m afraid that many Christians have forgotten that Eccl 5:4 says, “When you make a vow to God, do not delay fulfilling it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Fulfill what you vow.”
Remember, a covenant is an agreement between two parties about the future of their relationship. And we know that God is always faithful, but his people are not.
Hosea was trying to get people to understand that they had been seduced by the culture around them and that their love affair with God was over. No longer would they have that special relationship with Him. It was a sad message. God’s heart was broken because of their unfaithfulness.
A Word of Hope
But that is not the end of the story. Almost before we get done reading about Gomer’s sin and Israel’s unfaithfulness, we read that God will not give up on his people. Hear vs. 10,11. God is offering hope and restoration to people who have ignored his offer of love. He takes them back to His covenant with Abraham and Jacob that their number shall be like the sand of the sea. God takes them back to His covenant with Moses at Mt. Sinai, where He promised that they would be his people. In 2:14, God says he will allure his bride and speak tenderly to her. In 2:19,20 he says, “And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord.”
God doesn’t want their brokenness to be the last word. Not even their unfaithfulness can keep God from loving them. A poet has called God “the hound of heaven” because He is a pursuing God. (The Hound of Heaven by
Francis Thompson) He is a gracious God. He is a faithful God. He always keeps his covenant.
The story of Hosea foreshadows Jesus’ promise of eternal life to those who respond to His overtures of love. Romans 5:8 says, “While we still were sinners, Christ died for us.” He offers to take us from being a “Nobody” to being a “Somebody” in the Kingdom of God. And He claims the church as his bride, imperfect as she is.
Conclusion
I don’t know where you are in the story of Hosea, but if God is showing you areas of unfaithfulness in your life, he eagerly waits for you to pledge yourself anew to faithful love and obedience to him because remember, a covenant is all about the future of our relationship with him.
God wants what is best for you. He doesn’t want you to stay in your broken condition. God wants the church to be a faithful spouse and all believers who make up the church to reach their full potential. So today, whether you are a mother or a father or a single adult or a teenager, whoever we are, let’s ask God to forgive us, restore us, and empower us to be faithful covenant keepers in all circumstances of our lives.
Remember, a covenant is an agreement between two parties about the future of their relationship. And we know that God is always faithful.
(Resource: Allen R. Guenther. Hosea/Amos. Believers Church Bible Commentary. 1998)
