All of Life Church Sermon Audio

It can be very helpful to know your history. Your family history helps explain why you are how you are. Your medical history helps explain what you may face and what to do about your health. Our "Spiritual" story begins before we even come into existence.

All of our personal stories, begin with the Great Big Story of God, revealed in Jesus Christ. Our All of Life story is a continuation of the Big Story of God working in and through His people. Our Great Small story is born, because of God's work in His people - so today we remember where we came from, and how God intertwines our story into His.

As All of Life Church moves into our new building, it's a new chapter, out of the same book. Importantly, our story is a small part in the middle of a much bigger and better story - God's Story. Next week, we look at some of the details of our story, but this week, we enjoy and remember The Great Big Story we are a part of.

The Gospel of Jesus is unique in the whole world - because it is, purely, Good News. The Old Testament prophet Hosea is dense, intense, and a bit confusing - which is why it ends with a call to read wisely, and listen discerningly. As we do so, we see that Hosea foreshadows Jesus’ role in the rescue of his people. He is the faithful husband, who fully knows the depth of his people’s unfaithfulness, and out of love rescues them and brings them home.

Does God have emotions? Does viewing him this way "anthropomorphize" him to make him in "our image"? Or is it honoring the way he presents himself in scripture? The more we understand and trust God and his “emotional world”, the more we will engage in loving personal relationship.

In Hosea God shares his internal world, so that we can understand and trust him. We see that God's heart is full of love and loyalty, and this motivates him to choose to have compassion on his people.

Hosea 1-3 acts as an executive summary of the whole book of Hosea. It gives the primary plot points, and uses Hosea's real life to express God's relationship with his people. God views his relationship with his people as a marriage. And he chooses to "marry" them, knowing ahead of time that they will be unfaithful.

In "Movement II", Hosea's wife Gomer is unfaithful. God uses this to express how he views Israel's behaviors and beliefs as relational unfaithfulness.

When God begins speaking through Hosea, God's very first instruction is that Hosea goes and marries a woman, knowing that she will be unfaithful to him. And this is to illustrate how God's people have been unfaithful.

And, it also illustrates how God views his relationship with his people - as a marriage. God is married to his people, and will be faithful to them.

True Followers of Jesus listen to Him and do what He asks of them.