The Harvest of Your Life

SCRIPTURE READING

If you would stand with me for the reading of God's Word. We'll be reading the entirety of the chapter of Hosea, chapter eight this evening. Hear now the holy and infallible word of God.

"Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law. To me they cry, 'My God, we, Israel, know you!' Israel has spurned the good; an enemy shall pursue him. They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but I knew it not. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction. I have spurned your calf, O Samaria; my anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence? For it is from Israel; a craftsman made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces. For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour. If it were to yield, strangers would devour it. Israel is swallowed up; already they are among the nations as a useless vessel. For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers. Though they hire allies among the nations, I will soon gather them up. And the king and princes shall soon wither because of this tribute. Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning. Were I to write for him my laws by ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing. As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins. They shall return to Egypt. For Israel has forgotten his Maker, and built altars; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities. So I will send a fire upon his cities; it shall devour her strongholds. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."

You may be seated.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

I mentioned when we began studying the book of Hosea together in our evening services that at the end of chapter one, it feels like we get this reprieve. It feels like we get this uptick, this note from being shown no mercy to being shown mercy, from being called not my people to being called my people.

And then we entered into the rest of the book of Hosea, in which again and again we see the just tragic account of God's people whoring after other gods, looking for alliances of military strength, all looking for their salvation, praising God with their lips, but being far from him. And we're still in the midst of that in the book of Hosea tonight, as we look at Hosea chapter eight. We're going to see a condition that the human heart is so prone to have, and that many of us in this room might even say, "I have that heart," or, "I recognize that I once had that heart."

See, we tend to believe that if we're kind to people, that if we work hard, that if we just try to do the right thing, life should turn out generally well. It's kind of the American dream, right? If I work hard, I'm a good neighbor, things should go well. We can call this American theology. And maybe even if you make a few mistakes along the way, surely your good intentions count for something.

Having positive intent, surely that's going to help. And I call this American theology because we kind of have this piece where we would say, "Well, if I'm generally good to people, I'm then a good person." Or that comparison of, "Well, at least I'm better than that guy." And it ends up leading us to a place where we make good neighbors, we care about our families, we help people when we can, we try not to hurt anyone.

But somewhere in the back of our mind, we might be assuming that this has to count for something with God. We attend worship, maybe we read our Bibles, we serve our families, and perhaps we begin to think that a little bitterness isn't going to matter, that a particular sin can be left alone, or that neglecting a relationship with God really doesn't have that much effect.

Things are going generally well. We assume that the good in our lives will somehow make up for the bad. That's that uniquely American theology. "Oh, I'm good enough," or, "I'm better than that guy." But what if that's wrong? What if that's inherently wrong and just being better than your neighbor is not actually good enough to appease a holy God?

What if just being a good neighbor, being kind, taking out your trash, putting your cart away when you go to the grocery store over leaving it in a parking spot — all good things — what if that is actually not enough? What if the choices we make have consequences that we can't simply cancel out with good intentions or deeds?

That's the warning that God gives us through the prophet Hosea in the eighth chapter. Israel claims to know God, but it has rejected his word. It's pursued false gods, and it's trusted in its own strength. Israel expects that their lives are going to bring about a good harvest, even though their life has been full of unfaithfulness, like seeds cast into a whirlwind.

We're going to see God through the prophet Hosea tell them otherwise. Tonight we're going to consider this big question: what kind of harvest are we actually sowing? This is outlined for you in your bulletin on page 23, and we're going to see three answers to this question. The first one: we assume good intentions will produce a good harvest.

WE ASSUME GOOD INTENTIONS WILL PRODUCE GOOD HARVEST

Do you live a good life? Surely, good things should come your way. Our passage opens with an alarm. "Set the trumpet to your lips." An enemy's approaching. Judgment is coming. Why is judgment coming? Because Israel has transgressed. They've broken the covenant relationship that God has made with his people.

They've rebelled against his law. And we see there in verse two Israel's response: "My God, we, Israel, know you." We know you. Why is judgment coming? Why are the trumpets sounding an alarm? We've seen throughout the book of Hosea that there is a claiming to know God. They identify themselves as his people.

They even know some of the right words to say. And we see in verse three, Israel has spurned the good. Their profession and their lives contradict one another. Here's the problem: Israel expects all of the benefits of belonging and being God's people, but they're refusing to live under God's authority.

They want God to protect them, but they do not want him to rule over them. They want to be the ones to determine what is good. And isn't that the temptation so often for us, too? It was the very temptation in Genesis 3 in the garden. What's the question that the serpent comes and asks Eve? "Did God really say?"

What's the implication there? Don't you know better? Can't you choose that which is good? Make your own good. Maybe you felt this way, where you want God's blessing, you want to see your family grow, you want his help, and you cry out to him in trouble, and you look to him for comfort. But what happens when his word confronts something that you actually really want to keep?

Do you submit, or do you explain your situation away? "But it's these circumstances. It's just one more time. I'll figure it out when I'm older." Verses four to six expose this heart of Israel's idolatry. They have appointed rulers without regard for God, and they fashioned idols out of silver and gold, and the Lord particularly condemns the calf at Samaria.

Verse six says, "A craftsman made it; it is not God." Think about that. They have made something with their own hands, and they're placing their trust in it. They want a god that they can fashion according to their own desires rather than submit to the God who made them. They want to make the god.

Now, I doubt any of you when you go home that there's a golden calf like Samaria that you've fashioned. Nobody has basements in Florida, so maybe it's off in a closet or the garage or a shed. I doubt there's a golden calf that you have lurking somewhere that you are keeping. And so while you may not bow down like Samaria and Israel before her to a golden calf, you know the temptation to fashion life around what you think will secure you.

Each of us knows the temptation to try to make God in our own image, to answer that question that the serpent asked Eve, "Did God really say?" I don't want to look at it. I don't want to look and see what he actually said. I want to get to live how I want to live, but I have good intentions. Everybody else can do that, but I have good intentions. Sometimes that comfort becomes anything to get money, to accumulate enough so that way I can control my safety, I can control my security, I can weather any storm.

Sometimes it's success. Whatever I have to do to get ahead, whatever I need to do to justify the end.

Sometimes it can even be our own goodness. We might try to tell ourselves, "I'm not perfect, but I'm a good person. I try to treat people well. I do my best. Surely God must see that, and surely it must count for something." Goodness fashioned by your own definition. It's not a golden calf. You didn't make it with your hands, but you use it to justify how you live.

Kindness is good. Honesty is good. Caring for your family, helping out your neighbor — all of these are good things, but these things cannot substitute for trusting and obeying God. Imagine standing before God and explaining your life. Would your defense be that you trusted in his promises, that you received his mercy, that you sought to follow his word?

Or would you point to all the ways, "I'm better than that guy. At least I didn't do that atrocity." Would you confess your sin or would you explain away why your sin might be understandable? "It was the circumstances." What does Adam do in Genesis 3 when God questions him? "It was the woman you gave me." It's the circumstances. I sinned only because she sinned first.

Lord, you trust Christ and trust that your good intentions are never enough. Israel's danger was not that it never heard of God. It was not that it believed that it could simply do good things to just get out of the situation. They tried, but they're still trying to recognize God in little ways, even as they bring sacrifices.

There is a lingering true goodness there for Israel. Their biggest shame, though, is they believe they can fashion God in their own image. We too can make the same mistake. We can assume that because we call ourselves Christians or a good person, because we mean well, that God will overlook all of the ways that we simply refuse to listen to him.

Where instead of just turning a blind eye, we stop up our ears. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to be convicted. I don't want to read that passage about the Sabbath because then I might actually rest from my work.

God sees what we love. He sees what we trust, and he sees whether we're willing to submit to him. And I wonder, dear Christian, what are you excusing in your life because you believe that the rest of your life is going well? The "I don't want to look at it," the "I don't want to hear it" because your intentions might be good.

Do not assume that good intentions will produce a good harvest when you are sowing seeds of possible unfaithfulness.

We REAP THE HARVEST WE SOW

And that brings us to the warning at the center of this passage, our second point. We reap the harvest we sow in verses seven to ten. Verse seven gives us this central image: "For they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind."

Israel's choices have not produced the security that it expected. Attempts at military alliance, its idolatry, its political maneuvering has actually brought further vulnerability. It sowed the wind, and now it will reap the whirlwind. The harvest is worse than the seed. That is one of the great deceptions here.

It shows us what we want right now while hiding where our choices will lead. The seeds that they sowed were trying to make the military alliance with Assyria, and the whirlwind of Assyria conquering them is about to come in. All of their plans, all of their schemes, all of their political maneuvering is going to do the exact opposite of what they hoped for. It shows the things that they were hiding.

We too can do the same thing. Bitterness in a moment promises you satisfaction. Dishonesty promises an easier way out. Pride promises that you will never have to admit that you were wrong. Neglecting God's promises can suddenly make eternity not feel urgent. And sin assures us that we can manage the consequences.

Yeah, some of the seeds went into the wind. Surely some of them will hit the ground. Surely some harvest will come. We tell ourselves, "I can hold on to the resentment without becoming bitter. I can keep this habit, this sin private. I can put off dealing with this until I'm older. It'll get better after I get married."

I can neglect my relationship with God right now because I think I have eighty years ahead of me. But do we really control what our choices end up producing? A person who repeatedly lies to avoid difficult conversations may eventually find that no one trusts them. The seeds in the whirlwind. They didn't get what they thought they were going to get.

A person who nurtures resentment may discover that it's begun to shape every relationship, because now they're suspicious of everyone all the time, always. A Christian who continuously neglects God's word and worship may find that when suffering comes, trusting the Lord is no longer an instinct, and instead your instinct becomes, "How do I fix it?"

The category we have most in the Psalter, out of 150 psalms, is lament. Taking your cares and concerns to the God who hears you, to the God who numbers the hair on your head, to the God who loves you enough that he sent his only begotten Son for you. We can end up seeing no longer the reflex to cry out to your Father for help, but instead to look in on yourself and go, "How do I do it?"

Now, we don't always see the consequences immediately. That is part of why sin is so deceptive. We can continue sowing and conclude that nothing is happening. The whirlwind didn't come. We see some seeds sprouting up. Assyria might have taken the bait on this military alliance. But a delayed harvest is not the same as no harvest.

Israel thought that its alliances would bring security. Rather than trusting the Lord, Israel sought protection through these arrangements with foreign powers. Yet these allies cannot save them. The very things in which they have placed their confidence are going to fail them. How often do we all do the same?

We want peace, but we actually pursue control. We want security, but instead we trust money, paper. We want healthy relationships, but we refuse to actually ask for forgiveness to restore the relationship. We want spiritual maturity, but we neglect the means that God has given us to grow. We want to reap what we have not sown.

Now, we must be careful here. Hosea is not teaching that every hardship is a punishment for a particular sin. Faithful people suffer, too. There's a judgment, a divine judgment that God is bringing against his people through the prophet Hosea. But what he's teaching them is that their covenant unfaithfulness has real consequences, and that rebellion against God cannot ultimately produce a life that is flourishing.

It cannot. No — enough good intentions, no being the best possible neighbor, does not lead to a life that is flourishing by God's design. So we must consider our own lives. What are you sowing in your home? What are you sowing in your marriage, your friendships, your community, your church? What habits do you have in your life that are actually shaping your heart?

What sin have you been telling yourself is harmless, that you can manage it? Perhaps the most uncomfortable question is this: if you continue living exactly as you are living right now, what type of person do you think you'll be in five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years? Not what kind of person do you intend to become.

The habits, the patterns of your life, what person is that producing? Dear Christian, is it a more sanctified by the working of the Holy Spirit in your life? Do you look for it? Do you long for it? Do you cry out for God to work in your life to sanctify you, to conform you more and more into the image of the new man?

Or are you content? "My good intentions are good. I do the things." What kind of choices do our daily decisions begin forming in us? God gives us this warning because he loves us enough to tell us the truth. He will not let us believe indefinitely that our sin is harmless. But recognizing a bad harvest does not mean we can simply work harder or make ourselves more right with God.

WE CANNOT PRODUCE A GOOD HARVEST ON OUR OWN

That is the final problem that Hosea exposes. Our third point in your outline: we cannot produce a good harvest on our own, in verses eleven to fourteen. Verse eleven says, "Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning." Israel has not abandoned religion. It has multiplied its altars.

There is plenty of religious activity happening in Israel in the days that Hosea was sent to minister. But the people are not returning to the Lord. They're not repenting. They're not turning from their sin and turning to God. Their religion has become another way of continuing in their sin. And we can do the same.

We can serve in the church even while refusing to repent, convinced, "Well, these good things that I'm doing, surely these are actually counteracting these secret things that I'm doing." We can pray for God's blessing while deliberately ignoring all of his commands, and we can use our good deeds to reassure ourselves that we are doing well.

But imagine a man who has been unfaithful to his wife. He begins buying her flowers. He begins planning special date nights. He begins giving the most thoughtful gifts he possibly could. Those things may be good in themselves. Husband, you can buy your wife flowers. You can take her on a special date night.

Is any of those things, if that man went off and had an affair, is any of those restoring the relationship? Is any of them walking in repentance? No.

It's like putting icing on a cow pie and calling it a birthday cake. It stinks.

He doesn't need to give a better gift. He needs to repent. We do not need a longer list of good deeds to compensate for our sins. We need to be reconciled to God. Verse twelve says that even if God wrote his law for Israel by the ten thousands, they were regarded as something strange. This is how far they've wandered from the Lord.

Him telling them more of the things that he loves, the things that are good, the things that are holy — if he were to write them out, how odd are they? How strange are these commands? They don't know him. They don't know their God. God's word has become foreign to the people who claim to know him, and that is a frightening possibility for anybody who regularly hears scripture.

We can become so accustomed to hearing God's word without allowing it to actually confront us, without allowing it to actually go into our ears. We know what it says about forgiveness, but forgiving can be really hard. We know what it says about honesty, but my excuses are really good. We know we should trust the Lord, but really it's my problem to solve.

We hear God's word, but we've already decided that we won't obey it. Then verse fourteen tells us the root of Israel's problem. "For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces." They have forgotten the God who made them, who rescued them, who redeemed them from slavery, who sustained them through the wilderness with manna.

Instead, they have invested in their own security. They believe that their palaces, their fortified cities, all of these things — "these will protect us. Here is our hope in brick and mortar." But these strongholds cannot save them from God. Here is the great danger. You might spend your life building a future that leaves God out.

Those fortified cities, those palaces, kept the Lord out, and then they expected him to bless it. They built all of their lives around keeping God out. "We can protect ourselves. God, will you bless the thing that we did? Come and just, you know, sanctify it." We could build a successful career, a comfortable home, a respectable reputation.

We can be admired by our neighbors and loved by our friends, yet none of those things reconcile you to God. No amount of religious activity or moral activity can make up for a heart that refuses to trust him. So where is there hope for us? If we cannot excuse our sin, if we cannot make ourselves right with God, where can we turn?

We turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus who lived in perfect faithfulness to his Father. He did what we failed to do, and at the cross, he bore the judgment our sins deserved. He rose from the dead so that sinners who trust in him might be forgiven and made new. Our hope is not that we have finally produced enough good — just good out into the world, good intentions from our heart, and they can outweigh the bad.

Our hope is that Jesus has done what we could never do. He did not run and build a fortified city for himself. Even in Matthew four where he is tempted with all the kingdoms of the world at his feet, he doesn't seize them. He doesn't seize the palaces. And in his grace, he comes to forgive sinners. And by his Spirit, he changes lives.

He teaches us to confess our sins rather than to excuse them, to pursue holiness rather than making peace with sin, and to trust God's wisdom rather than our own. We don't earn this grace by producing a good harvest. We receive a good harvest through faith in Jesus Christ, a harvest that is alien to us, a harvest that we could not grow.

And his grace begins to produce not seeds sown into a whirlwind that get thrown about, but fruit in keeping with repentance. A good harvest begins to grow. Perhaps you spent years believing that being a good person is simply enough. You know that you have faults. You know that you've always assumed that the good outweighs the bad.

Or perhaps you are a Christian who has become comfortable with your sin, and you don't desire it to be your comfort anymore. You've told yourself previously that it was not that serious. You've assumed that somehow living faithfully the rest of your days could make up for your sin. Hosea does not want you to leave here tonight with that illusion.

The Holy Spirit ministering through Hosea to the people about to go into exile does not want you to leave with that illusion. God wants to make it very clear to you. What are you trusting to make your life right before God? Your intentions, your reputation, your religious habits, the good that you have done — none of these can bear the weight of your soul.

Do not wait until the harvest arises up from the ground to admit that the seed was bad. Do not wait until the consequences are unavoidable and you cannot turn. Do not try to purchase God's favor with better performance. Christian, non-Christian, come to Christ. Walk in repentance. Turn from your sins that so easily entangle, and turn to the good that your Father has given you.

Bring him your guilt, your self-righteousness, your false refuges, and your sins. Come willing to confess. Stop defending the goodness you believe that you should be enough, and trust in the goodness of Christ, your Savior. You cannot go back and change what was sown, but you do not have to keep walking away from the God that made you.

The question is not whether you have been good enough to deserve a good harvest. That's how life tends to work. You plant enough good seeds, those grow, you're successful, you get a good harvest.

The question is not whether you've been good enough to deserve a good harvest. The question is whether you will keep trusting in yourself, the harvest of your own hands, or you will trust in the only one who can forgive you, redeem you, and make you new. A new creature of a new harvest awaiting the resurrection at the end of all things.

CLOSING PRAYER

Amen. Let us pray.

Our Father, Lord, we thank you for the message that you spoke through your servant Hosea. Lord, let us have ears to hear. Let us not trust in our own hands, in our own confidence, in our own perceived value, but let us solely run to the cross of Christ, to the one who produces real and genuine goodness, to the one who gives an overflow of grace, to the one that came to seek and save the lost. We pray this in his name.

Amen.