Highlands Fellowship Love Regretted Transcript
I just want to welcome everyone here today from all over our campuses for all those on TV and online. Man, hasn't this been an awesome series going through it, love restored. Uh we've been in this Valentine season, thinking about all these different relationships in our life. In the last three weeks, we sit there and we've heard from uh Pastor Tim talking about uh family, talking about our marriages, talking about relationships and not only just relationships with other people, our relationship with God. If you was here last weekend, oh my gosh, do we get challenged when we think about these things in our lives and we're trying to restore love in our lives and really to have that connection with God.
It's all about forgiveness. And man, that hit me. That hit me talking about forgiveness. And it really kind of helped me even think and build about today when I look at today's message. How can we truly love God without having forgiveness in our hearts?
How do we love other people without having forgiveness in our hearts? We truly can't, can we? And that's a struggle because how many of us when we were honest with each other, building from last week, how many of us when we talks about that forgiveness, we still hold on to hurt so bad. We've been hurt to the point like, man, I just can't let certain things just go. And here's my question today.
How do we get past that hurt? How do we get past that regret? And how do we truly have love restored in our lives? That's the challenge. What happens if you don't give up when you have these things and these things come against your lives, but you still want to drive forward in them?
Today I'm really want to sit there and let this be maybe a part two to Pastor Tim's message to kind of build off last week. When I think about that, let's start here. What is love? We've talked about the last three weeks. What is love?
I love how Pastor Tim went to last week. He talked about the great commandment. We're loving God with everything we got. All our heart, all our mind, and all our soul. And we're loving our neighbors just as much as we love ourselves.
It's that foundation. It's love. How do we sit there and love? And I tried to go through and pick all these different definitions and thoughts and processes and kind of put it into this little this meaning. And I don't know how great it is, but we'll try.
The true meaning of love is a profound selfless commitment to another's well-being. I can see that. Characterized by deep affections, respect and acceptance. We want that. Involving mutual growth.
Man, I hope so. in your relationships. I hope so. With your spouse, you're growing together. We want to support. We want to be vulnerable.
The more we love somebody, the tighter that is. The more we trust them and we respect them, the more vulnerable we are with them. And what is it not? I think we got a hint of that a couple weeks ago. It's not just this fleeting emotion or this physical attraction.
Curious, how many guys started unloading the dishwasher a couple weeks ago? Now, if y'all laughing, y'all was here a couple weeks ago. If you're not, you need to go back check out that message. Great truth in that message sprinkled in with some humor. But great truth.
We need that in our lives. But what is truly that love? How is it expressed in our relationships? It's through sacrifice. Sacrifice is the heart of it.
We want to have empathy. We want to have this consistent care of someone else to love and bond with them. That's love. That's how we want to live it. That's how we want to be into that.
And you might say just as much as I say, when I look at my past, it doesn't always look like that. It's not always a mirror of that image when I see. You ever try to love someone and later wish you had done it differently? Man, I have. I can sit there and look at my own relationship with my wife.
This this fall, this October, we'll be together for 27 years, over half my life. and someone I love dearly. We've had our children, our two daughters together and had such a relationship and a commitment to each other. But when I look back at all those times, there is regret. There's moments I have to tonally totally blown it. And it hurts when you look back.
I think about certain discussions that we've been in. I'm like, man, I could have done that so much better. I really blew it on that one. I really have regret about that. or that time we were in a a certain argument and it got a little warm and I said things in anger that I wish I hadn't said. Can't take back.
They're right out of my mouth. All I can do is ask for forgiveness for him. Or is there times when maybe Heather was desperately needing to hear something from me and I was silenced because I was bitter or I had whatever anger in my heart in those moments and I wish I had said something then and I didn't. or even if is it even gotten so bad at moments and it has we get to a point that it's elevated this rose so much that instead of trying to work it out and try to process and try to have these this this discussion of of health I literally just walked away for a little bit man that's regret that is regret that I wanted to be able to do better as I move forward I think when each of us truly look into our lives we probably carry at least one of those stories, one of those moments that we just totally blew it in our lives. And I think some of our deepest regrets so many times we think it's going to be about money. Maybe when we're younger, we going to think it's about our career.
We're going to think about, you know, do we miss these great opportunities out there. Guys, it really goes back to our relationships in love. It's love that is the ones that really truly get us right here in our heart. It's the relationships of love that we deal with. Today I want to step into one of the most powerful I believe pictures of scripture is about a love that refuses to give up.
And man, don't we aren't we desperate for that? Having a mindset and a heart of never giving up on that love even when this one shows us maybe we have some great reasons to walk away. But God shows us through this story, man, there is hope. There is restoration. There is a love restored.
It's over in the Old Testament and it's the book of Hosea. And let me warn you, if you've never wrote read into Hosea, it's not your neat, clean love story. It's not what you think it's going to be, man. It's messy. It's very uncomfortable at times.
If you had stuff in your past, it can be raw, just like our lives can be raw when we go through those things. But this story is one of the clearest pictures I think we can grab out of the Old Testament, out of God's heart. We truly see God's heart for us in these passages. The first three chapters in the story is about love regretted and love restored. And this is what I want you to look for in this story.
Somewhere between this beginning area, the first chapter, we look at this heartbreak. And as we move through that to chapter three, we'll see this uh redemption. And somewhere between all of that, I want you to sit there and take a perspective of this story is not just about Hosea and his wife. that it's not just about Israel. Dag on it, it's about us. It's about you and me.
That's what I want you to see today. It's about us. Let me set it up. This story takes place a little over 700 years before Jesus's birth. So, in that time, Israel had not done a great job following God.
Boy, they have they've just gone all over the place. They've done their own thing. They got to a point where their morals and their values are tanked. they got to a point where they're just worshiping Bale and all these false gods. So, they're not doing too good. And I think about sitting there so many times in my life, it ain't changed.
When we look at our own selves, all the stuff that we worship and we put in front of God all the time, I always think of the country song whenever I'm doing all those distraction is looking for love in all the wrong places. That's what we do. We sit there and we get to this point where we're we're hunting for love. we accept this this this relationship to this point. Dang, but we're looking in the wrong place. God is desiring that.
God wants to have all those things, but just like Israel, we've gone to so many different directions trying to get that fulfillment. And what does it lead to? Love, regretted. We regret those things when we step back and we look days or weeks or years later. God does have this prophet that he speaks through and his name is Hosea.
And in this first chapter, God tells the prophet Hosea to marry a woman named Gomer. If you was raised up in my generation, when you think Gomer, I think Gomer Pyle. So, this messed me all up trying to read this story because I'm like shazam. And I I struggled reading it a little bit, but it's a really great story and a great vision of that. And I want to jump in at verse two in Hosea.
It's chapter 1 verse two. It says this. When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, "Go take to yourself an adulterous wife," and children of unfaithfulness because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery and departing from the Lord. And like I almost kind of like, "Wait a minute. This is verse two." And I'm already kind of lost cuz I'm like, did he just sit there and say, "Go find an unfaithful wife?" I'm like, God, what are you doing?
And we sit there and we read this, God is making it pretty clear right at the very beginning. This marriage ain't going to be easy, is it? You think you have some tough times, man. There's going to be some tough times in this. But Gomer will be unfaithful in this story, and she will pursue other lovers.
And if you're like me, I did ask why. Like, why would God ever do that? Why would God sit there and literally say, "Hey, I want you to find you a great adulterous wife." I'm like, "What?" And it took me a moment to really think through that cuz I said, "I have to know, okay, what do we know in this moment?" We know Hosea is a prophet of God. We know he's the voice of the Lord speaking. He speaks his message through.
He delivers God's message to his people. We know that when we know we said we look at Israel in this time period, they've rebelled against God. They're in all these different pagan ways. They're greedy. Their life and their style is just in a mess.
They have moral struggles and they started worshiping upon all these idols. So, we know all that's taking place. And I'm trying to figure out, so what in the world is God's doing? And I kind of went back to the second part of that verse. And God alludes to that because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery and departing from the Lord.
The land is Israel. He's talking about Israel. So, I'm sitting there going, I was like, is God kind of giving this this twist where he's actually using Hosea's marriage, his relationship with his wife to kind of mirror what's happening between Israel and God? And it is he's using this. He's not only sitting there just using that.
He's going to make Gomer's, cuz people are watching him. He's going to allow Hosea to sit there and go through that and see it so people can see what God is trying to speak to the Israelites at that time, the struggle that they were having with him. If we sit there and we think all the way back to Moses, if we go about four or 500 years before this, you have Moses and God loves his people. That's why he sends Moses to rescue them out of Egypt. Do you remember the Exodus?
Do they do that? They have all the plagues. He goes, he gets them to death at they're exiting out of Egypt. They get to the Red Sea. God splits the Red Sea.
They go into the promised land or trying to get to the promised land. Moses goes to top of the mountain, get the law, and what happens? The people already do their own thing and they build a golden calf and start worshiping it. So God says, "Okay, if you're going to be like that, you're going to have 40 years in the wilderness. You're going to wander around." But even when they're in that wilderness, God still loves them.
He still provides for them. Their clothes don't wear out. Their shoes don't wear out. They got something to eat and he provides for them to eventually he gets them to the promised land. He sits there and gives them identity of his people.
He makes a covenant meal. You are mine and I am yours. But over the last four or 500 years, they've wandered away from God again. They've struggled. They've walked away.
God is using Hosea's marriage to show what Gomer is doing to Hosea, Israel is doing to God. They're being adulterous. They've turned their back on them. They've fallen in love with other things and not the true one. In this first chapter, Hosea and Gomer are married.
And over the next few years, she has three kids. And based on the name God has told Hosea to give them, it would seem these children are just like Israel. They're not his. And he uses these names as just great reminders of how he's feeling toward Israel in these moments. The hurt, the pain that he has.
The first name is Jezreel, and this you've had all these wars and these things going on over us in the Israel Valley and he's given us this reminder of the brokenness and the consequences that because God is aggravated. They're not listening. They're not doing it and he's going to allow them the Israelites to feel those consequences that's going on. You have Lo Ruhamah and he sit there and he speaks of that these he's trying to sit there and going this name means not loved. So that's what he feels man. and he's filled his people has turned his back on him and God's like, man, they're it's hard for me to have that love for them and they're not loved for me.
He goes and then the third child is Lo Ammi, not my people. Because it hurts so bad. It's turned so wrong. They've turned so many different directions and worshiping all these other things and not God. He literally feels like they're not his people anymore.
And I think all this language that God is using through Hosea is just showing everybody else. This is a love regretted. This is how we feel when we have love regretted. And it's not because God stopped loving. He always loves his people.
It's because his love had been rejected for so long that man, it just hurts. And it puts this distance between God and the Israelites. And they're struggling in that. Some of us know what that feels like. Have you ever sat there and you were in this relationship and then you had all these future plans?
It had built and it was great and you're growing and you're learning and man, you've just poured so much into it. You were faithful. You showed up. The promise looked so amazing. You stayed committed and something went south so quick and you felt this betrayal in it.
Man, it hurts. God is saying, "I loved you. I've loved you. I've brought you. I loved you.
And you betrayed me." And guys, it hurts. It hurts. And I want you to see that. Hosea reminds us something that we don't always understand. Do you realize God feels betrayal, too?
He's speaking it. He's speaking in this passage. I feel that. And it's really what pulled me to this passage of scripture to talk about today was this. Sometimes I don't realize that.
I always think when I'm sin or I'm messing up or I'm doing those wrong things in my attitude or my actions, it just hurts me. Maybe somebody a little bit, but man, God's God. He's going to forgive me. He loves me. He wants the best for me.
And that's true. He does. But he still feels betrayal. We have to do better than that. And he feels it to such an extent, man, it feels adulterous.
And I never put that two together. When I think of something adulterous, I think about a relationship. If I sit there and I after this message, I go out and I'm with my wife and I'm sitting down in front of her someone you love and I'm sitting there sharing and going, "Hey, I got to be honest with you, man. I had a I committed adultery against you." Are you going to brush it off and going, "Well, just like God, it's not a big deal." Or is it going to crush you? It's going to crush you, ain't it?
It is going to hurt beyond belief. And God is saying, "That's what I feel like." Every time you put something else before me, every time you sit there and you look for this pleasure or this approval, every time you sit there and you look for some kind of comfort over there or control over something, that's what you make me feel like. You've brushed it off and say, "Man, our relationship's just a casual thing." When God is saying, "I'm all in. Where you at?" And it's hurt. Sin doesn't just break the rules, guys.
It breaks the relationships. It breaks that. That's not what God desires from us. As we move into chapter two of Hosea, the curtain gets pulled back a little bit. We kind of get to see God building this out just a little bit better and kind of describing.
He describes Israel running after all these other lovers. He talks about the idols and he talks about power and security and pleasure and how the Israelites are really looking at this as that their blessing. We do the same thing today, man. And how many times you sit there and you think about your job being your identity? Not God.
How many times you sit there and you think about my security, man. Long as I got my 401, long as I got my IRA, I got security. It's not God. I just need that. And we go, "Oh, get it out of the way." And God's like, "Are you for real?
Are you for real sitting there saying that? You're intelligent, your health. You think I don't provide that? That's what's going to be your provider and not me as your provider. Come on." And we go, "No, no, no.
I don't say that. I don't say that kind of stuff." Well, your actions are showing it. Your actions are saying something different. And sometimes that's hard to hear. Look at how it's worded here in chapter 2, second part of verse 5.
This is Israel. She, Israel said, "I will go after my lovers who gave me my food and my water, my wool, and my linen, my oil, and my drink. I will go after those." That's the provider. Like, man, not God. I'm looking at all these other things to provide for me and not God being to that.
It's this love misdirected that we've getting it wrong. That's the source of the blessing instead of God being our source of blessing. But he tells us what true love is. This is what how God reminds us in verse eight. She Israel, Israel 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 the gold.
What did they do with it? which they use for Baal. They literally took the silver and the gold that God provided and they use it to worship someone else, a false god. I'm like, what are we doing in that? We forget, don't we? We forget our true provider in these things.
We forget love regretted often forgets in those things. We forget who actually sustained us, who provides on that. We forget who forgave us in our lives to sit there and forgive us of our sins and our struggles. We forget who stayed with us when others didn't. When everybody fled from us, man, God was still there.
And instead of having this heart of repentance and change, look what we should, what we do, we rationalize it. Yeah, God understands. Yeah, God's going to forgive me. Yeah, I'll do better. We'll just rationalize it and do that same junk. and it hurts.
And God is trying to say, "Man, it hurts. I feel this. I want better for you. I desire better for you." Starting in verse 9, we kind of see this turning point. And we get to watch how God is not just exposing Israel's unfaithfulness, but he actually interrupts it.
He says, "Therefore, I will take my grain when it ripens and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen and tend it to cover her nakedness. So I will now expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers. No one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all of her celebrations, her yearly festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days, all her appointed feasts.
I will ruin her vines and her fig trees which she said was her pay from her lovers. I will make them a thicket and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals. She decked herself with rings and jewelry and went after her lovers, but she forgot me, declares the Lord." Man, Lord's dropping a hammer. He's being real.
He's being transparent. He's sharing all of it. This is what I feel like. This is what I want you to understand. This is what I see in that.
And I'm like, gosh, it ain't looking good for him. Then I go to verse 14. "Therefore, I'm going to allure her. I will lead her into the desert and I'll speak tenderly to her." And I'm sitting there going, "Okay, we're getting ready to go into the desert. We're getting ready to go into the wilderness.
We're going ready to hit this." But he said he finishes with those words, "Speak tenderly to her." That one threw me and I was trying to figure out what are God saying in that moment? Because he's he looked like he's trying to get rid of all these things in his life. He's taking all these things back and then all of a sudden he's going to the desert or to the wilderness and he's going to speak to her tenderly. And I'm like, is God really is God really just removing the distractions in our life? Is he just removing Israel's distractions in their life so he could sit there and truly build that relationship back?
Is he using the wilderness to punish them or is he using the wilderness really to have mercy on them? Sometimes when things get removed out of life, God's not punishing you, it's mercy. He's just trying to get distractions out of your life. He desires that relationship with you so much. He don't want you to get caught up in that stuff.
See, sometimes love has to be stripped down so it can be rebuilt. We have to strip it down at times. And God will allow us to lose what we thought we needed so we can realize who we truly need in our lives. That's how he gets our attention. And sometimes it's not great.
Sometimes it's hard. But when we do realize that, when we do understand that, man, I want you to look at this verses 19 and 20. "I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord." Man, we're with God.
We acknowledge that. We see that. We want that. We desire it. And God is saying, "Man, my love's going to last forever.
It's not temporary. It's not conditional. I love you forever." That's what he's trying to say. And God is right here saying, "I'm going to take the first step that love being restored. I'm going to do these things in your life that you might think is not too good, but I promise you they're good because I desire you and I want to be with you." He will take that step.
As we move into chapter three, we see the most powerful chapter in this book in verses one and two. And man, this should sit there and speak to you. Look at how he ends it. Verse one. "The Lord said to me, 'Go show your love to your wife again.
Though she is loved by another and is an adulteress, love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.' Though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes." I was like, "What in the world's raisin cakes?" Again, that's kind of analogy. Back then, they was just these luscious, scrumptious, good pressed fruit cakes that you could eat. But God is sitting there saying that's just the lavish stuff. It's like we call the bougie stuff nowadays. It's all the bougie stuff in that.
When we put all the bougie things before God, man, my car, my house, my clothes, all my bougie things, it's really that. So when you turn to other gods, when we turn to these sacrifices other than God, the things we want. "So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley." So here he is going back to Hosea. God is telling him, "Buy her back. Buy your wife back." And I was like, we can read over that so quickly, but have you really kind of just paused for a second and think about that?
Go buy your wife back. What in the world? How far have we fallen? She was his wife. And I'm thinking about here's this husband going back and buying his wife.
So, he's purchasing his wife. He's freeing her and literally redeeming her from the sin that she is in slavery to and that mess. And what really kicked me in this one when I read that passage is I'm like, is that what Jesus does for us when I really literally look at that? Didn't Jesus purchase me? Didn't he give his life on the cross so I could be purchased for the sin I committed?
Didn't he free me from that sin in my life? Didn't he redeem me from those things cuz I was a slave to it? I'm like, this is exactly what Christ done in each of our lives. So, I'm sitting there going, this is 700 years before Jesus's birth, but is this the gospel before the gospel? Is he showing us that?
Is he showing us that love restored is not cheap? that there's always a cost. There's a cost of humility, forgiveness. it's having grace over resentment in our lives because we can have it. We can hold on to that junk. But this is how much God loves us. Even after betrayal, even after warning, even after regret, he loves us.
So what does this mean for you and I? What does it mean for us? Three little things I want you to sit there and remember out of this passage, out of the scriptures. The first thing is God's love is honest. Man, he has an honest love for you.
He doesn't ignore the sin and he doesn't pretend the betrayal doesn't hurt. It's an honest love. And understand the things that we do and choose, it hurts God. How do we choose better in those things? The second thing I want you to understand is God's love is persistent.
Don't forget that, man. When we sit there and we walk away and we do stupid stuff and we try to ignore God, he's still after you. He's still coming after you. He's still Hosea going after Gomer. I'm still going to get after you.
Even when you gone so far away, I'm coming after you. I desire you. I love you that much. And then the third thing I want you to understand, boy, and this is hope, God's love is restorative. He can restore it wherever it's at.
Wherever you're at today, however far you think you've fallen, he can restore it. And Hosea is not just a story about him and his wife. And it's not just about Israel. It's about you and I. This story is about you and me. how far we might have gone to the left, how far we've wandered off, how many times we've screwed it up.
But God wants to have hope. He wants to restore that relationship with you. We are a Gomer. We wander so many times in our life. We forget and we chase things that are never satisfying.
We try to fill those voids in our life with junk, but it's just a void. And God is the one who always comes looking. Jesus already paid that price and he's going to bring us home if you let him. Some of us today when you sit there and you look at your life and how you are living, you are living in love regretted. You know it.
You feel it. You sense it. Regret over the choices that you can't undo. Guys, that's your past. You're dealing with the damage from past relationships that hurts and you're struggling with that distance that you've allowed to grow between God and you.
And he wants to shorten that thing. And Hosea clearly tells us this. And don't miss if you don't miss anything in this passage, don't miss this. Regret is not the end of your story. That's what God's trying to tell you.
You do not have to stay there. He does have something better for you. And God doesn't do it cautiously and he don't do it halfway. God is all in. He is all in about you.
He wants the best for you and he desires to be with you. So the question is not whether or not God is willing to restore that love with you. Guys, here's the question. Are you willing to return? That's it.
Are you done? Are you done running? What are you running to? I know what you're running from, God. So, what are you running to that looks better than that?
Quit pretending. Quit pretending you got it. You handled it. It's all right and it is fine. Quit pretending.
It's God. He knows. He already knows that. You don't have to sit there and try to impress him. And stop chasing what will never love you back.
That void is not going to get full with that. You've tried it. You've tried it for 5, 10, 15, 20 years to fill it with that. And you still feel the same way you feel today. There's something better.
Love regretted can become love restored. It can change in your lives. And it's not because we deserve it because we don't. It's because he is so good. God is so faithful when we're not, that he brings all that back together.
My hope, my challenge, my desire for you today, if you know there's a distance between you and God, and you know it, you know what that feels like. And you know, if you've wondered or you've drifted or you've kind of done your own thing or maybe you've never even truly surrendered your life to God, but you feel that sense today. You feel that heaviness today. You feel that moment of possibly a calling in your life to bring you home. And now God, we're going to pray.
We're going to pray. And this prayer is for you. And I don't want you to think about it. It's for you, not someone else around you. This prayer is for you.
I want this to speak to you. Would you pray with me this morning? Father, we have our regrets. We have our wandering that we've done in our lives. We have our brokenness that we allow to happen between you and I.
And Father, we come to you today not in fear of the consequences, God. We come to you in trust. That is what we want. Lord, I thank you for pursuing us with this restorative love in our lives. I thank you for paying the price to bring us back.
You said no cost is too much when you sent your son. I thank you for the grace that your grace is greater than our failures cuz I've had so many in my life. And Lord, for those who need to return to you today, give them courage. All they need to take is one step forward, God, toward you. That's all you want.
You're there. You're waiting. Your arms are wide open. He's just saying, "Take one step." And I got you. I've got you on this one.
For those who need healing, Father, meet them in here. Meet them in this place right now. Join them. For those who need restoring, God, let it begin. Let that journey and that connection start today.
And God, you're faithful even when we're not. And today, we stop running. We make a choice, Lord. We confess that we have sinned. We've gone our own way.
We've done our own thing. We've trusted other loves instead of you. But today, we know you are calling us back. And Jesus, we believe you died for our sins. No one else.
You did. And you rose again. You went into that tomb 3 days later. You conquered death. And today, we repent.
We turn from our old ways of living, God. And we placed our trust in you. Nothing else, not the other things of this life. Father, forgive us. Restore us, make us new.
We receive your grace. We accept your salvation and we choose to follow you. And Lord, thank you. Thank you for the ones who sit there and touch their hearts today. Thank you for the ones that say yes to you today.
Thank you for the ones that's coming home to you, God. We give you the praise and the glory and every single bit of it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.