The Relentless Love of God

Introduction

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, 21 year old, Dylan Roof entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. He participated in a Bible Study spending an hours with members. At the end of the Bible Study, Dylan Roof began shooting. He murdered nine people. After a brief manhunt, Roof was found about 250 miles away and returned to Charleston. It was at Roof’s arraignment that something interesting transpired. Standing before a judge via closed circuit television, family members of victims were allowed to speak to Roof. There was a common theme spoken by this group that is captured by Nadine Collier whose 70 year old mother was one of the victims that night. “You took something very precious away from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul.”

Do you believe her? Do you think it is possible for her to forgive? What allows her to forgive so quickly? Could you have forgiven Dylan Roof if he had killed your mother? We want justice for these families and yet we also want Dylan Roof to change. Don’t we want him to become a follower of God? Don’t we want him to give up his anger and hatred and to love all no matter the color of their skin? Don’t we?

At what point do you want to stop being forgiven? At what point do you want God to give up on you? At what point do you give us permission to stop loving you? We are quick to want to be forgiven but may find it difficult to believe that people can really forgive or may believe that there are some things that are completely unforgivable. Our series on Hosea ends today. I want us to end with a look at the character and nature of God as seen in chapter 14. Let’s open our minds to learn anew that God is relentless when it comes to loving us. We worship today a God that never stops pursuing us even when he has to allow us to receive consequences of our choices.

Repentance and Reconciliation

Israel has pursued other gods. As a nation they had violated God’s commands and sought their own heart rather than seeking the heart of God. God sends Hosea to announce that their lack of repentance would result in punishment. Even with the promise of suffering and loss of national power, Israel only pretended to return to God. They continued to pursue their own path giving credit to anything but God for any success and prosperity. There is throughout Hosea a pattern—God warns, pleads, and promises and Israel ignores and forgets. Finally, God’s patience is exhausted and he will bring Assyria from the North. Israel will fall and will never again be a nation. It will take centuries for the area to recover and even then there is disharmony.

But Hosea does not end with words of destruction but with words of reconciliation. This chapter focuses on the character and nature of God. In verses 1-3, God announces that those who want to return to him will be forgiven. God says confess your sins and I will forgive. Admit that your created gods are powerless. God says that in him the orphan finds mercy. This is a profound statement. It speaks to the heart of God. Early in Israel’s history, God wanted his people to care for the poor giving special attention to the fatherless and widows. God has a special place in his heart for the fatherless. In the absence of an earthly father, God wants to be a father to those without.

In verses 4-9 God speaks of his heart and his longing to be in relationship with his people. I will heal your faithlessness, God says. Like a physician, God will bring healing to the nation. This carries the idea of forgiveness. God will forgive their apostasies. Israel pursued other gods. God pursues Israel. And when people turn to him he heals or forgives them. God adds that his love is free and abundant. There is no coercion here. This idea expressed in the NIV “freely” is a word that is used in connection with a free will offering. In other words, God speaks of his love as being voluntary, abundant, and without coercion. One doesn’t have to beg God for him to love. His nature is to love. His desire is to love. His love is unrelenting and strong. His love does not stop and exceeds his anger.

When Israel turns, they will get their nourishment from God. When roots are placed in God’s love, growth takes place. The beautiful image of a flower that grows and whose beauty comes from the nourishment of the soil is what happens when a person sinks roots into God’s grace and forgiveness. When we come to our senses that only God can provide what we really want, then we follow him and his ways.

Application

What are we to learn from this text? Two lessons. First we have to accept the truth that God loves better than we can imagine. We have a bookkeeper mentality about life. Rights and wrongs are kept in the ledger of life. There have to be more rights than wrongs to please God. This belief makes sense to us but it makes God out to be a liar. Listen. God loves more deeply and profoundly and perfectly than we can ever imagine. He desires relationship with us more than we can express. God prefers to love rather than punish. God’s love is not based on our character; it is based on who he is. Our mentality gets in the way. We think in terms of how we love. But God loves because of who he is not because of who we are. God loved us first and he loves us with a perfect love. He wants us even when we are not sure we want him. When we confess our sins, we discover this truth—God’s love was always there waiting on us.

Second, we have to accept the truth that God forgives better than we can imagine. When God forgives, he forgives completely. Some of us have a hard time accepting God’s forgiveness. We have a hard time imagining a God who can forgive so completely and in large measure we have a hard time accepting that truth because we cannot forgive ourselves. We live with shame. We know the heinousness of our sins and we cannot imagine anyone forgiving us much less God. We hear that God forgives and we want to believe that but then we think of our sin and we find it difficult to accept God’s forgiveness.

Let me give you a couple of things to think about—Forgiveness does not mean that we forget. Sometimes we believe that if God had truly forgiven us then the memories of what we had done would be taken away. We pray for God to do that for us and when the memories do not fade we think that is proof that God hasn’t forgiven. That isn’t true. Our memories exist and God can use our memories to bring praise for his forgiveness rather than shame because of our actions. Paul didn’t forget the memories of what he had done to God’s people, but he exalted in the depth and permanence of God’s forgiveness as a result. Memories bring praise not shame.

Secondly, think about God’s desire for you. God is a healer. At his core is the desire to bring internal harmony to those who repent. At his core, God desires for those who follow him to find comfort and peace. So determined is he to secure these attitudes for those who belong to him that God gives us his Spirit who by his nature and power produces fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and self-control. The very qualities that we long to develop in our lives comes from God’s Holy Spirit who is given to us at our baptism. His presence assures us that God is our Father. In Romans 8:14-17: For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

God doesn’t want you to question his love or forgiveness. He is your Father. He we belong to him. His love and forgiveness are exceed our sin. Whatever you have done; whatever struggles you have; whatever doubts you may have, God is greater than them all. Invitation.

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