Hosea 1:2-3 (Pt. II)

This is part 2 of Hosea 1:2-3 “The unbeliever’s whoredom.” Last time we looked at the believer’s.
For this section we’ll look at Romans 3 starting in verse 10

“’None is righteous, no not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good;
not even one.’
‘Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.’
‘The venom of asps is under their lips.’
‘Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.’
‘Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.’
‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’”

One who does not believe is first of all, disobedient, and therefore in direct rebellion to God their Maker. Rom. 11:30, 32; Ephesians 2:1-2; 5:6; Colossians 3:6; Hebrews 4:6,11 these verses all speak of the disobedience of unbelievers (some of which have now become believers, by God’s grace) The Greek word is “apeithia” not only means ‘disobedience’ but also ‘rejection of belief.’ Thus when the dead man is not doing good, nor can do good, he is living in unbelief and therefore rejection of the Gospel.
Faith is an act of obedience toward the calling of God in our lives. Now the calling of God is irresistible, yet at the same time it is still obedience to believe the Gospel.
Those who are living unaware in their whoredom are those that do not believe the Gospel; those that do not have the call of God on their life; those that, as Romans 3 puts it, have, ‘no fear of God in their eyes.’
Thus for those of you that do not believe the Gospel, your whoredom is just as real, you just don’t know better. How could dead people know better?
So, examine your life. Do you believe the Gospel? The purpose of this blog is not to make you wonder whether or not you’ve been redeemed rather it is to spur you who are believers on to grow. And to spurn you who do not believe to belief. So for both you who believe and you who do not believe be, “working out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Phil. 2:12-13)”

Laminin

We had another great week of worship at Journey The Way. I think I met like 10 new people yesterday. God is at work and we pray that he continues to move.

Yesterday during my sermon I referenced a video talking about Laminin. I wanted to post that video here for you to see. I think you will be amazed as I am at our creator. Jesus is worthy of our worship and praise.





My prayer is that you realize that God made you and He has plans for you. His desire is that you live all of life to glorify Him.

For the praise of His glory,
Chad

Time with God...

How and when do you get time with the Lord? I have walked with the Lord now for 22 years, and one of the things has marked great times of success in ministry and joy in life has been the times when I have been in the word on a consistent basis. I confess that those times have been minority as opposed to the majority. I think Chandler hits the nail on the head in this interview when he prompts us to ask the how and the when question.

How will you spend your time with God, and when will you do it? Put it in your schedule or else it will be sparse at best.

For the praise of His glory,

Chad

Why Community?

I recently had a very interesting talk with some people from Journey The Way about the need for community. The topic of the conversation mind you didn't center on community but something else entirely, but it became obvious to me that the answer to the problem in question was in fact community.

We have become so completely self-reliant in this country. We don't really need anyone else for much of anything. For the most part if we have a problem we will go to great lengths to avoid bothering anyone else with our little problem. At first glance this looks like a really humble trait, but the reality is that it is false humility. False because the motivation for not bothering others with our problems is so we save face. The thing that really has me thinking these days is that this is so different then what we see in the book of Acts.

Acts 2:42-47 And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ⁴³And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.⁴⁴And all who believed were together and had all things in common. ⁴⁵And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

As the church we are suppose to be there for each other. We are suppose to lean on one another. So why is community so important in the Church? Community is important because it is the means by which God meets our needs and humbles us all at once.

For the praise of His glory,

Chad

P.S. thanks to those of you who contributed to this conversation, God used you to teach me something new.

Pics from First Service

Just wanted to make a quick post to update everyone on our first service. We had 58 people there and worship was sweet. Our volunteer team was amazing and God was clearly there. Be praying for what God is going to do next.

A view of the crowd from the side.

Half the band (The other half was at Passion Conference) leading us in worship!

Picture of me Preaching (trust me this is all the closer you want to get, I am a little sick right now).

Every Church should have a disco ball.

The body and the blood!

For the praise of His glory,

Chad

Life: The American Idol

I have been thinking recently about life. It always seems to happen this time of year. The preservation of our life is something that we value more that anything. We will go to great lengths to make sure that we are safe and secure. We will go to the same lengths for the ones we love as well. I am not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with this. However if we are not careful we take the creation (life) and put it in the place of the creator (God). Anytime we do this we create an idol.

Paul said in Philippians 1:21 that for him "to live is Christ and to die is gain". We were created to live for God and to make much of the name of Jesus. By valuing safety and security over God we have replaced our God with an idol. For Paul life meant fruitful labor for Christ, and dying is viewed as a good thing because it means seeing Jesus. Instead of this view many of us think that we exist for OUR good, and to preserve OUR life is gain. This view forgets that our life is nor our own. We were bought at a high price, and we now belong to the King.

Hosea 1:2-3

“When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” Hosea 1:2-3

The theme of Hosea is laid out for us in these two verses, “Take to yourself a wife of whoredom… For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” Here we will look at the two types of whoredom in two parts. First in the post we’ll look at the believer’s whoredom. In the next post we’ll look at the unbeliever’s whoredom. Let’s begin with the believer.

As believers in the Gospel, this is our condition. We are Gomer. We are the whores. The ones pledging our affection solely to Christ, then turning to love anything else. To describe this better I default to Henry Scougal’s small yet powerful book (originally a letter) “The Life of God in the Soul of Man”. Within which he writes we must,

“…Wean our affections from created things, and all the delights and entertainments of the lower life, which sink and depress the souls of men, and retard their motions toward God and heaven; and this we must do by possessing our minds with a deep persuasion of the vanity and emptiness of worldly enjoyments.”

“This is an ordinary theme, and everybody can make declamations upon it; but alas! How few understand and believe what they say? These notions float in our brains, and come sliding off our tongues, but we have no deep impression of them on our spirits; we feel not the truth which we pretend to believe. We can tell that all the glory and splendor, all the pleasures and enjoyments of the world are vanity and nothing; and yet these nothings take up all our thoughts, and engross all our affections, they stifle the better inclinations of our soul, and inveigle us into many a sin.”

We say we love Christ Jesus more than life, and love, and freedom, and family, and friends and money, yet we spend more time worrying about, thinking upon and hoping for these things than we ever have Christ. We, the believers in the Gospel, are the whores, placing our affections anywhere but on Jesus.

Thus the necessity of the Gospel, we knew not how we ought to love, therefore Christ came; we knew not how we ought to live, therefore Christ came; we knew not what it meant to be alive, therefore Christ came. Paying our debt by dying in our place and propitiating the punishment we so justly deserved. So that, positionally speaking, we now stand before God perfect, by Christ work only. Though we are shot through with our sin, and in dire need of progressive sanctification.

Fight the good fight of faith,

Sam

Romans 7:24-25