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[0:00] Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

[0:14] Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born. I will make her like a desert, turn her into parched land and slay her with thirst.

[0:28] I will not show my love to her children because they are the children of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace.

[0:41] She said, I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.

[0:52] Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes. I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them.

[1:05] She will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.

[1:16] She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold which they use for Baal.

[1:29] Therefore I will take away my corn when it ripens and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her naked body.

[1:41] So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers. No one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations, her yearly festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days, all her appointed festivals.

[2:00] I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers. I will make them a thicket and wild animals will devour them.

[2:12] I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the bales. She decked herself with rings and jewelry and went after her lovers. But she, but me, she forgot, declares the Lord.

[2:26] Therefore I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards and will make the valley of Achor a door of hope.

[2:42] There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the days she came up out of Egypt. In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me my husband.

[2:53] You will no longer call me my master. I will remove the names of the bales from her lips. No longer will the names be invoked. In that day, I will make a covenant for them.

[3:05] With the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky, and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle, I will abolish from the land.

[3:17] So that all may lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.

[3:29] I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. In that day, I will respond, declares the Lord. I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth.

[3:43] And the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil. And they will respond to Jezreel. I will plant her for myself in the land.

[3:54] I will show my love to the one I called, not my loved one. I will say to those called, not my people, you are my people. And they will say, you are my God.

[4:07] The Lord said to me, go, show your love to your wife again. Though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress, love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.

[4:25] So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, you are to live with me for many days.

[4:37] You must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you. For the Israelites will live for many days without king or prince, without sacrificed or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods.

[4:57] Afterwards, the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

[5:09] You want to turn in your Bibles to that passage that Pete read for us. If you were at community group last week, I wonder how your groups got on with these passages.

[5:21] They're not easy passages to go through and do require a lot of prayer and a lot of just working just to kind of draw them out. But I have to say that just in the last week, as folks began to kind of acknowledge the sort of difficult stuff at the beginning of the passage and then sort of see some of the hope at the end, I don't know, just as if the Holy Spirit just presenced himself.

[5:44] And it was a beautiful moment just as we beheld something of Christ and his redeeming purposes in all his glory. Glory. And, you know, it is my prayer, I guess all our prayer, that God would just help us to, by his spirit this morning, to reach something of those dizzying heights just where we see the Lord in all his glory.

[6:06] Now, the prose in chapter 2, you can see, you know, this prophecy, it's a highly, the way that it's presented is highly stylized, isn't it? And it's designed to create a vivid picture and vivid pictures and draw us deep actually into the emotion of the situation.

[6:26] And, of course, it's a layered passage. It is at the same time a human story of a husband and a wayward wife. And at the same time, it is a spiritual story of God and his wayward people at the time.

[6:40] A deep and heart-rendering heart cry of Hosea. But actually, the deeper heart cry of God for his people.

[6:51] In the first chapter, and if in the first chapter we pointed something to, it pointed us to the faithfulness of God, then I think these two chapters draw us to him as our redeemer.

[7:05] And what we're going to see, I think, as we look through the passage is firstly something of an anguished judgment, then a purposeful discipline, a tender redemption, and then just gospel fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

[7:22] So first of all, this anguished judgment. Verse 2 is vivid. It's like a grief-stricken father and husband sitting around the dinner table with his child and stepchildren, pouring out his anguish to them in this sort of ancient setting and culture, so very different in many ways from ours.

[7:47] You know, in other parts of the scripture, like in Proverbs, the wife of noble character, she's praised at the city gates. Proverbs 31, 28 and 29. Her children arise, call her blessed.

[7:58] Her husband also, he praises her. Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. She brings joy to their hearts. But it's the opposite here, isn't it? Here are the words of a man whose heart is broken, who is pining, who has been wronged and who is hurting, crying out in anguish and the injustice.

[8:19] Jesus is not praise like in Proverbs, but rebuke. As she has abandoned not just her husband, but also her children, consumed by the heat of her own lusts and desires.

[8:33] She's left them behind. The text is stark, isn't it? But it is meant to be because it is meant to draw us into the pain of this anguished heart cry, of a heart in indescribable pain, calling out on the one who has ripped up that which was never meant to be rent asunder.

[8:58] That one flesh union, the bond created not just in words spoken in the covenant of marriage, but in the intimacy and vulnerability of the consummation of that marriage, sealing their union together.

[9:10] Like the swans up at the University of Lough, bonded for life, faithful for life. Like the Lord, who himself has faithfully covenanted himself to his bride for eternity.

[9:24] So what was supposed to be a precious and cherished gift, only to be shared between this husband and wife, now lies strewn on the floor.

[9:36] And Hosea is calling out to her to stop the pain and the wrong of her adulteries and unfaithfulness, in that second part of verse 2. And behind it is two stories.

[9:48] And behind this human story, there is this other story. We're taken to the very heart of God here. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because our God is not the God who is simply just out there.

[10:00] The God of the dais, who is like the disinterested watchmaker, who has created and sort of wind up the mechanism of the universe and just watches dispassionately from a distance as it kind of works out.

[10:13] No, ours is the theistic God of the Bible. Yes, he is creator. Yes, he is almighty. But he is also revealed to us as personal, interested, involved. In our lives.

[10:25] In whose image we are made and whose likeness we therefore share. And though his feelings are not like ours, his are untainted by sin.

[10:39] His are supercharged by his divine nature. Yet we're told in the Bible that he feels. And in fact, he defines the feeling not only that he loves, but he is love.

[10:49] And so because he is not cold and dispassionate, because he cares, because he loves, the flip side of that coin of love is therefore the protective element, which is his wrath.

[11:06] Anger is the protective element of love. In his book, Good and Angry, David Powlettson describes how God's anger is aroused when there is an injustice, either to prevent it or protect those from it.

[11:21] So, for example, his anger on sin is partly to help protect us from the devastating power of sin in our lives.

[11:31] He hates sin for the purposes of our well-being as well as for his glory. If you've not read David Powlettson's book on good and angry, I really recommend it.

[11:45] It is truly excellent as it kind of unpacks just how the gospel shapes that aspect of our being. Our problem, though, is that we do not know how to handle our anger, which arises in response to an actual or perceived injustice.

[12:02] But he does. His responses or judgment are always right, always true. And actually, incredibly, because in his anger, he remembers mercy, as Habakkuk reminds us.

[12:18] There is a wonderful element even in the midst of it. And it is that gospel dynamic that helps us to disrupt the excesses of our anger when we mirror his, when in our anger, maybe to a right situation, we also remember mercy.

[12:36] And so the gospel begins to reshape those dynamics in our lives, as we'll see further as we come in the later verses. And even though Gomer has gone astray, there is this call to stop, to repent, to change direction, to return.

[12:57] That implicit in God's judgment is the call to turn around. And then the judgment that is mentioned in verse 3 of public exposure, not actually mandated in Scripture.

[13:09] It may have been practiced in the nations around or in the slave market. But in a sense, as he speaks those words, it's not Gomer that is in view. It is the other story. It is Israel that is in view.

[13:21] It is the church of God that is in view. In the covenant that God established with his people, the blessings were made clear. But so also were the forfeits or the curses for breaking the covenant.

[13:36] If we had time, we could look at Deuteronomy 28 and see them. But amongst those for covenant unfaithfulness was a withdrawal of the blessing in their commerce, in their fields, in their vineyards, in their orchards, in the wombs of both the animals and the people and so on.

[13:51] And that fits somewhat with the arc of Scripture, because we see how in the beginning that God established his people, Adam and Eve, in his place in Eden under his rule and under his blessing.

[14:04] And it ends there also with God's people, us in God's place in heaven under his perfect rule and blessing. And we see that kind of dynamic all the way through the Scriptures as either it is restored or relinquished by the people of God.

[14:23] And as Israel now has walked away from that covenant, broken it for some 200 years, the Lord who revealed in Scripture slow to anger and abounding love is patient.

[14:38] Finally, is letting them face the result of breaking the covenant that was promised, the time of exile, judgment, discipline. That they, verse 4, who were his people will not be my people, not in his place, no longer and his rule and his blessing because of their sins, verse 5.

[14:56] And all through Hosea, we're helped, aren't we, to see that God takes sin seriously. In our age, there is a tendency, I think, to trivialize sin.

[15:10] Our television screens are full of things that, you know, where they think nothing of taking the Lord's name in vain, of promoting promiscuity.

[15:21] Often the screenplays are written in such a way that we end up rooting for the couple who are going to have an affair. We talked about spiritual complacency as something of the backdrop here last week, of being lukewarm, worshipping idols, or affections directed elsewhere from the Lord.

[15:37] And one of the contributing factors that I think Hosea highlights for us is that we lose, that these things happen when we lose sight of the sinfulness of sin, the abhorrence of sin by God.

[15:49] And if you're new to looking at the Bible and you're here for the first time, you've picked a corker of a week to come, you might be thinking, why does God find sin so abhorrent?

[16:02] Is he really that petty? But when we stop and think about it, sin is the stuff that really messes up our lives. It's the thing that may seem good in the short term, but in the long term, it's the stuff that just leaves us in a mess.

[16:18] Go back to anger. Anger misused as, for example, a controlling mechanism to get people to cower to your will destroys relationships, actually destroys our health, raises our blood pressure, and so on over the long haul.

[16:33] Something that seems so appealing in the short term can have such long-term devastating consequences. Lying. It might get us out of a scrape at work, but when eventually we find out, it loses us trust, the trust that we've earned.

[16:53] It affects the team. It may even lose our job, our relationship. Pornography. Procures in, and I'm speaking to men because it's mainly men who use pornography, but not exclusively, it procures a low view of women.

[17:09] It leaves with an addiction. It leaves people with an unsure, unsure that they can live up to the unrealistic expectations that are created on these movies.

[17:21] Frustrated that they're maybe not achieving them. It kills marriages and actually creates a horrendous dynamic for many of the women who are involved in it.

[17:32] Many of them struggle with massive mental health issues and many of them ultimately will commit suicide because of it. Sin has devastating consequences.

[17:46] It is deadly in so many ways on the horizontal level, but more worrying than this, it's also deadly on the vertical level because it damages, it impacts our relationship with the Lord.

[18:03] And as unbelievers, we cannot be unconcerned about our disobedience. As those who aren't trusting in the Lord, the Bible tells us, sin hurtles us towards hell.

[18:15] And as believers, our sin grieves the spirit, it quenches the spirit, it will cool and damage our walk with the Lord. It is luring as it leads us elsewhere to trust in other things like Gomer, verse 5.

[18:32] She said, I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink. She is looking elsewhere, chasing after lovers who she thinks will provide the things that she feels that she wants, but they will extract a high price from her as we will see.

[18:52] As she gives herself, she will find herself being used by others, devalued by others. And we'll find that ultimate devaliment in chapter 3. And of course, you know, it is a human story, but also it's a spiritual story.

[19:07] God is talking about Israel here who has looked towards the Baals, verse 7, and it's plural because the Baals, it was not one God, but a category of gods, mainly to do with prosperity and fertility.

[19:21] Fertility in the fields, the orchards, the livestock, and in family life. People would go to their temples or to the high places of Baal, listen to their priest, make a sacrifice to them. In some cases, a human sacrifice, a child or a baby.

[19:34] Or you paid the price for the services of the temple prostitute. You had sex with them and that was supposed to bring resultant blessing on your fields and family. They did these things as they turned away from trusting in the Lord who provided all these things.

[19:52] To look elsewhere, taking matters into their own hands. And as we said last week, it's not as if they were not also going to the temple of God.

[20:04] In a sense, they're hedging their bets attempting both temples, the temple of God and the temple of the Baals. But in reality, they're not trusting God. They're praising Him with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him.

[20:16] They're not following God's ways. They're functionally not living as God's people. Yes, they are in His place, but they removed themselves out of His rule and out of His blessing.

[20:29] They've slid out of faith and trust into complacency, into false religion and into sin. And these are the things that the book of Hosea helps us to grasp.

[20:40] How those things break the heart of God. Because sin is not just academic to Him.

[20:50] Our sin, our disobedience, is an offense to Him. It is a stab at Him. It is a rebellion against His very person, His rule, His reign, His authority, where we politely or impolitely are telling Him where to go with His rule and His reign.

[21:05] And that's personal, isn't it? Imagine if you basically did nothing your boss asked you to do at work. You just ignored Him, berated Him, actively disobeyed Him. Of course, there are contractual issues there, but it's personal, isn't it?

[21:19] There's no trust, there's no respect, there's no love, there's no care. And it's hurtful. God is not simply the boss of the church.

[21:31] He is our creator. At an individual level, He is our Father. At a wider level, He is husband to us as a church, as His bride. What kind of child are we being before Him?

[21:44] What kind of bride are we actually? These are the questions that Hosea raises, aren't they? So what next for a wayward church or bride?

[21:55] There's the anguished judgment, but there's a purposeful discipline, isn't there? Our God is not petty. He is patient. He is measured. And He does call all people everywhere to repent.

[22:09] The scriptures make that clear, to change direction, to leave our sin behind and turn and follow Him and His good ways for His glory and His good, as we sung earlier. But if we persistently, whether it's a church or as individuals, persist in not following Him, then somberly, we might find ourselves where He says, well, if that's the way you want to go, you can't just get on with it.

[22:38] Leaving us to ourselves so that on the day that we meet Him, on the day of judgment, we are not meeting Him as Savior, but as judge. And on that day, He says to us chillingly, not my will be done, but Thy will be done.

[22:54] As you wished on earth, so you and I are receiving, confirming our own decision to hell's destruction. That's somber, isn't it? But it is a wake-up call that Hosea gives to a sleepy and complacent church, whether it's 2,700 years ago or across the generations to today.

[23:16] But also, we might find that He leads us, wayward children or wayward brides, into a time of hardship or discipline with the purpose of drawing us back.

[23:30] And there are, maybe you noticed in the study you did through the week that there are three interesting therefores of judgment or discipline to bring a wayward church back to Himself.

[23:41] The first is in verse 6, where we're introduced to the kind of means that God uses to draw a church or actually individuals back to Himself.

[23:54] The first thing is to frustrate. Verse 6, therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes. I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

[24:05] She will chase after her lovers but not catch them. She will look for them but not find them. Then she'll say, I'll go back to my husband as at first for there I was better off than that. You know, the Bible speaks about hedging or walling and Job, for example, was hedged in by the Lord who was protecting him and that was part of Satan's complaint against Job.

[24:27] But these hedges, these thorn bushes, these walls are used for a different purpose. They can be used to protect like Job but also they can be used to prevent like here for Gomer.

[24:38] Gomer. Where she's finding her purpose is frustrating. I can't seem to get what I want or get where I want to be. Chasing after many lovers but not finding them.

[24:52] I'm showing my age here but like the old U2 song used to go, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. If you're even older, Rolling Stones, I can't get no satisfaction. That frustration. if you've sensed the Lord hedging your path lately.

[25:10] Maybe to protect but maybe to prevent. Because frustrations can be things that the Lord will use to stop and to question. Lead us to think, what am I doing?

[25:24] Where am I going? What is my value? What is my worth? Where is my meaning or where am I finding and extracting these things from and actually are they satisfying in the way that I'd hoped?

[25:37] It could be work. To get on the career ladder you make sacrifices late nights give body and soul to it and you end up after years finding yourself passed over on the big one.

[25:50] It's not frustrating. It could be even successes. You get it all and actually find it didn't satisfy you in the way that you thought it would. It could be a health thing. It could be a soul thing.

[26:01] It could be a soul thing. When these frustrations come and we stop for a moment and we sense the Lord saying okay, you finished?

[26:15] Let's talk. Verse 7. She says to herself I'll go back to my husband as at first for there I was better off than now and certainly the prodigal also said that.

[26:28] The difference is that he did go back and when he went back he was sorrowful expecting nothing but being given everything. But her it's a different story isn't it?

[26:40] Some sense insincerity in her reaction here. It's not a true repentance. It is what Paul talks the worldly sorrow. Not sorry for the thing itself but sorry that they were caught regretting the consequences but not the sin itself.

[26:59] Maybe pride wouldn't let her be truly sorry. Sorry but not really sorry. Crocodile tears what you could describe as maybe a 90 degree turn not a 180 degree turn 90 degrees still with one eye on the thing that she's been hankering after.

[27:17] Godly sorrow in comparison is sorry for the sin for the wrong for the offense to God. It's a 180 degree turn away away from the past towards God leaving that behind.

[27:35] Godly sorrow is humble. Godly sorrow is contrite. Godly sorrow develops the spirit of Joseph who runs from the lure of Potiphar's wife leaving the cloak behind if he has to.

[27:47] Godly sorrow has the spirit of God in it and through it bearing not only the fruit of repentance but the fruit of the spirit as the spirit is at work. Godly sorrow verse 8 is the irony of it all where God acknowledges the reality of it that actually it is him who gives Gomer the stuff that she is using to then take and give a thanks offering or a sacrifice or payment to the prostitutes in the balance.

[28:21] It is God who has provided for Israel the things that they now take and they offer rather than thanks to him they offer in sacrifice to the false gods. In verse 9 there is the second therefore if the first is frustration the second is a forcible exile when they're removed from the land.

[28:43] Verses 9 to 13 are all the effects of when the Assyrians will come and remove from the land and repatriate them across the Assyrian empire which is what they did in every land that they conquered.

[28:57] The lands the orchards go wild the festivals stop but all the while as God pronounces these things he's saying stop these things repent turn around choose life not death and then verse 14 the third therefore and this should be in a sense the way that this is building the final climactic thing if the first is frustration then the second is forcible exile then the third should be finished therefore he says though I am now going to not finish but allure you I'm going to win you back what?

[29:40] in the place of judgment redemption in his anger he remembers mercy and we see this tender redemption yes verse 14 there's exile and in the wilderness there's punishment there's discipline as the Hebrew writer tells us as a parent disciplines his child so to the Lord and those who are trained by it reap a harvest of righteousness but in the wilderness in the exile God speaks tenderly to her beginning to restore what was lost verse 15 the vineyards and then in the valley of Achor which means trouble if you remember the valley of Achor was where Achan's sin was exposed as the people entered the lands Achan disobeyed the Lord and took for himself plunder at the very beginning the very outset of walking with the Lord having been redeemed they stumble and there's trouble in the valley of Achor but where there's been trouble verse 15 here because of mercy there's a door of hope it is said

[30:51] I don't actually think this is true but I wish it was that the valley of Achor was the place where Jesus met the woman at the well the woman who chased after meaning and value and worth an identity in the love of many men but ultimately the thing that she was longing for she found in Christ and couldn't wait to tell the whole village about it so there in the days when they those early days when they were entering the land the early days of Israel's courtship with the Lord if you like there was the Lord longing that they would return to those days when they would respond to him as when they first met as when they first started to court as when they fell in love in that place he will allure her restore her win her affection you know frustrations can lead to a partial turning but God's alluring grace to genuine change and transformation and then in verse 16 the the the the second if you like or the first of two in that days which signify a changed life where beauty begins to blossom where there's no longer enslaved to other lovers or to other masters or to idols or to addictions or to sin after the exile they are restored in relationship to the lover of their soul to the one who has allured and the one who has brought them back to the groom to his bride the husband to Israel and at that as these things begin to blossom and flourish as the

[32:44] Lord establishes his redeeming purposes in her life verse 17 his name then will be all her boast not the gods of the past but his name restoring his great purposes that they might be his people in his place under his rule and blessing and in verse 18 we see something of that covenant of blessing as the land surrenders to them it's blessing but ultimately it points although in part it points ultimately to the future place of blessing the ultimate place of blessing where the lion will lie down with the lamb the blessings are blessings of peace on their borders pointing forward isn't it to that future day when there will be perfect peace in his presence forever where we will be betrothed forever verse 19 in the beauty of holiness in righteousness and justice in love and compassion freed from sin's ravages are rags of the past cast off for the robes of righteousness that are ours in christ and then in verses 21 and 22 the second of the in that days the restoration of the land the restoration of the blessings from the skies and the fruit of the earth grain wines oils which had been withheld now restored they will respond to

[34:13] Jezreel Jezreel means the God who plants they will respond to the God who plants the place if you remember in chapter one Jezreel was the place of scattering now becomes the place of planting here in chapter three and the names of chapter two and the names of her children so abhorrent to us in chapter one here are beautifully reversed on that day no longer not my loved ones but loved no longer not my people but my people so that they might say to him and you are our gods restoring covenant blessing restoring covenant purposes this is what God's heart desires this is what he wants the better story that the gospel provides than the world or false gods or sin can provide ever provide I wonder if you started coming along to church just recently or if in a sense you've been running away from God for a long time estranged from him but now you've felt him drawing you back to himself you've been looking into

[35:24] Christianity for the first time or again and maybe today as you hear of his redemptive purposes of the longing of his heart that you would return to him then maybe to the day is the day that you also say you are my God and I am your child to return to the Lord in repentance and faith trusting in Jesus as both Savior and Lord come today do the 180 degree turn not the 90 degree turn the 180 degree turn away from the past towards a new future with God and with the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord understanding the price that he has paid for your sin to set you free which we'll see as we look into chapter 3 and we move on from the sort of heady and powerful prose of chapter 2 to rejoin the story of Hosea and Gomer in chapter 3 and we hop back in with a bit of a bump here don't we verse 1 is going to allure her win her actually buy her back just like he talked about it in chapter 2 and it looks like she's got herself into real trouble in her insatiable search for satisfaction in her following the heat of her desire she's gone from man to man in increasing frustrations and ended up here maybe at verse 3 in prostitution pimped by her latest so-called lover or maybe even a temple prostitute in the temple of the Baals these gods offer much but they deliver little or finds herself for sale as a slave girl in the marketplace and so

[37:03] Hosea goes round the city looking for her searching for her from destined place to place piecing together where she has been charting her descent maybe as he does it himself becoming an object of scorn and eventually he finds her in this low estate if it's in the marketplace then in the marketplace men and women were literally stripped naked as they went up for sale the bid may be started at one shekel two shekels five shekels ten shekels twelve shekels fifteen shekels fifteen shekels and a homer of barley Hosea gives all that he has fifteen shekels a homer and a lethic he gives all that he has to win her back and they begin to live life together in this new direction faithfully redeemed redeemed like Israel after the time of exile after this time of going without there is the offer to return to life with their true king in the line of

[38:08] David as we said last week partially fulfilled under Zerubbabel in the first instance but ultimately under the greater Zerubbabel the greater David the Lord Jesus Christ and that's what leads us into the gospel fulfillment in him because the Lord Jesus Christ himself ironically as he searched for us to redeem us we look like a fool so that we could become wise he was stripped naked so that we could be clothed he paid the price for our sin at the cost of his own blood so that we could be set free he was cast out if you like into the wilderness exiled outside of the city so that we could be brought into the blessing abused so that we could be restored sold out for 30 pieces of silver so that we could be bought with his precious blood so Titus

[39:11] Paul writes to Titus 2 verse 14 our great God and savior Jesus Christ who himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness he gave himself to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that is very own in 1 Peter 1 18 and 19 for you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold or barley or lethics it was not with silver or gold that we were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down from us from our ancestors but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ that is the savior that we worship this morning that is the savior that we follow that is the one who we give ourselves to that we renew ourselves in his lordship and his leadership over our lives for his glory and ultimately for our goods who has lifted us out of the judgment that we deserve into the new and changed life of the redeemed that we don't and yet he delights to give to us and as I was thinking about these things this old hymn came to mind my Jesus

[40:32] I love thee I know thou art mine for thee all the follies of sin I resign my gracious redeemer my savior thou art if ever I love thee my Jesus it is now let's take a moment we're going to sing in a minute there is a redeemer just reminding us of God's redemptive purposes in our lives let's just acknowledge our lives before the Lord the desires of our heart yield them to him let's pray oh Lord we acknowledge that these are sobering verses and yet there is a wonder in them we see in them how our sin breaks your heart and we see also your great longing that we would leave our sin behind and enjoy the blessings that you have given to us in Jesus

[41:41]  Christ that we would yield the lustful desires the heat of our affections for other things behind to tuck in behind you our precious saviour to follow you our precious shepherd who leads us on the paths of righteousness for your name's sake Lord we bless you that you are good we bless you that you are gracious how we ask for forgiveness forgiveness for our sins Lord we we humble ourselves before you and in this moment we yield our hearts to you holy and unreservedly if ever we love thee our Jesus it is now oh how we bless you how we bless your name that you are our redeemer amen you you you you you you