Slide 1 

Hosea 11:8-9 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah?  How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. 

Slide 2 

Hosea 14:1-3 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,  for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the Lord; say to him,  “Take away all iniquity; accept what is good,  and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’  to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.” 

Slide 3 

God invites us to come home. (14:1) God shows us how to come home. (14:2-3) God tells us what He will do when we do. (14:4-8) 

Slide 4 

God’s Template for Repentance (Hosea 14:1–3) “Take with you words… say to Him" Confession: “Take away all iniquity.” Be specific with God. Put Away: “Assyria shall not save us… we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands.” Name the false idols. Ask for mercy: “In you the orphan finds mercy.” Come empty-handed and loved. 

Slide 5 

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” - C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory 

Slide 6 

An idol is anything I put before God. Anything I rely on, love, or obey more than Him. 

Slide 7 

Psalm 115:8 Those who make them become like them;     so do all who trust in them. 

Slide 8 

"What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or for restoration." - G. K. Beale 

Slide 9 

“You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship.” - N. T. Wright 

Slide 10 

Simple idol test: Do I look to it for my security or my identity more than God? (Jer 17:5-8; Ps 62:5-8) Do I disobey God to keep it? (Exod 20:3; Matt 6:24) Does it capture my heart, time, and treasure first? (Matt 6:21; Col 3:2) 

Slide 11 

Hebrews 12:5–6 “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord… For the Lord disciplines the one he loves…” 

Slide 12 

Hebrews 12:11 “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” 

Slide 13 

Discipline isn’t God paying us back; it’s God bringing us back. It’s not rejection; it’s rescue. 

Slide 14 

The Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (From the tax collector’s prayer in Luke 18:13) 

Slide 15 

Hosea 14:4-8 I will heal their apostasy;     I will love them freely,     for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel;     he shall blossom like the lily;     he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall spread out;     his beauty shall be like the olive,     and his fragrance like Lebanon. They shall return and dwell beneath my[a] shadow;     they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine;     their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon. O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?     It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress;     from me comes your fruit. 

Slide 16 

Kintsugi (kin-SOO-gee):
A Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, highlighting the cracks instead of hiding them, thus turning the break into part of the beauty. 

Slide 17 

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

One of, if not the most famous statue in the world is the David Statue by Michelangelo. One of the reasons that you can know that it's one of the most famous statues in the world is because they have made 30 replicas of that statue all over the place. But most of those replicas are not as big as the original thing. If you go to Florence, you can go see the original thing. I have never seen it. But it, this picture helped me get the perspective a little bit different, that it's actually 17 feet tall. It weighs over 12,000 pounds. So that's, that's the, the important one to see because it hides some parts of the statue. But then that picture helps show just how massive of a statue it is. But the history behind the statue is fascinating because it was first commissioned in 1464, there was a, an artist, a sculptor, his name was Augustino Augustino had, he was relatively new in his career. 

He goes to the, the, the place where it's Florence, Italy is where he goes to the, the slabs of marble and he's looking at all the different options, and he chooses a particular slab of Carrera marble, and they, they wheel it all the way back over to Florence. He gets it to Florence. You're talking about huge amounts of time, energy, effort, money. And he starts working on it. He only works on it about two weeks when he realizes he had made a mistake that somehow when he was picking out the marble, he had picked some marble that maybe looked good at the time, but once he starts working on it, he realizes that it's flawed. And so he walks away from, he says, I'm, I'm not good enough to fix this. 12 years later, a a separate artist, the second artist steps in, and before he even starts to work on it, he looks at it and says, I can't touch this. 

It's impossible. The quality of the marble is inferior. Now, what's interesting is if they take the Michelangelo David statue now, and scientists have gone and studied it, they found that this is true, that the marble quality is in fact inferior. So for, for 40 years, it just sits around doing nothing. Eventually, they're like, Hey, we gotta do something. We got this giant, huge 20 foot block of marble, thousands of pounds. Find somebody that can turn it into something. And so Michelangelo in 1501 was only 26 years old, and in two years, he crafted that masterpiece. One, one of the art historians a guy named Giorgio Sari, he described what Michelangelo accomplished as this, the bringing back to life of one who was dead. That nobody thought that you would be able to turn this hunk of defective marble into what became the most famous statue in the world. 

But there was something about what Michelangelo saw that was different. And there's that famous quote from Michelangelo where he says, every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. We've, in the book, we've been in the book of Hosea, and Hosea is about exactly that. And it, that it's God looking at his people and, and saying that there's something beautiful inside of you that, that I wanna draw out, I want to bring out. But you are unaware that it is there. The god's people on the outside looked fine, they looked prosperous, they looked successful, but on the inside they were broken. They were wretched, they were sinful. And so you have hose, Jose, that, that the first three chapters that tells this story, it's this analogy of Hosea the prophet marrying Gomer, the prostitute. 

And God is saying that our relationship with him is very similar to that, that God has covenant love has said for us, but we are continually unfaithful and over and over and over again. And so then you, you go through kinda the middle of Hosea and it's talking about the sin that they have, primarily the sin of idolatry, that they were taking other things and worshiping those things and making those things there, God. And then you have in chapter six, this famous verse that Jesus quotes two times in the New Testament where he says God desires mercy. In the original, it was that that word has said, covenant love, unending love and not sacrifice. The heart of it being, Hey, it's not about what's on the outside. It's not about the motions that you're going through. No, it's about the genuineness of your heart. That's what worship really is. 

And the last week we looked at Hosea chapter 11, if you've got a Bible, turn with me to Hosea chapter 11. We'll pick up in verse eight. And it's this, this beauty, it's this promise that, that God is saying, despite all your unfaithfulness, despite all your brokenness, I love you. Here's what it says in Hosea, chapter 11, verse eight. God says, how can I give you up rum? How can I hand you over O Israel? How can I make you like mah? How can I treat you? Like zebo, my heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger. I will not again destroy Rin for I am God and not a man, the holy one in your midst, and I will not come and wrath. Maybe you're in here today and you, you've been far from God. 

The cry of God is that, that God loves us and desires and intimate relationship with us. Then in chapter 12 of Jose, you, you have the sin of Israel. God talks about their idolatry and their unfaithfulness. And then in chapter 13, you hear God's anger, Hey, this is what's going to happen to you as a result of that. But then in chapter 14, where we're going to camp today, you have this hope, you have this looking ahead to the hope that is found in Jesus, but also the hope that is found in repentance. Turn with me to Jose chapter 14. Pick up in verse one. It says, return O Israel to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity, take with you words and return to the Lord. Say to him, take away all inequity except what is good. And we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. 

Assyria shall not save us. We will not ride on horses, and we will say, no more our God to the work of our hands in you. The orphan finds mercy. Well, what's cool about chapter 14, it's the last chapter in the book of Hosea, and you have these three things that get laid out in order the, the, the very beginning of the chapter verse one, God invites us to come home. It's an invitation that God has for the nation of Israel. It's an invitation that God has for you and I today, that if you are far from God, there is this invitation where God is saying, please come home. And then in verses two through three, God shows us exactly how to do it. There there's this clear pathway of what repentance looks like. And then at the end of the chapter verses fourth through eighth, there's this, there's this picture of, if you'll come home, if you'll repent of your sin, here is what I your God have available to you. 

Let's look at God's template for repentance, because it's, it's a practical one that he gave to his people at the time. It's a practical one that we can follow today, that right wherever we are, that if we feel far away from God, this is the pathway back, the, the beginning of that chapter. God says something interesting. He says, take with you words and say to him, he, he doesn't say, Hey, hey, bring these sacrifices. Go through these motions, do these things. He says, no with your words. I want you to confess to me that we see the power of confession echoed in the New Testament in Romans chapter 10, verse nine. It says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that you'll be saved. That there's just something about confession, confessing with our mouth that has power. 

And so he's saying, this is what you should confess to God. The first one is a confession of sin. They cry out, take away all of our iniquity that we should be specific to God. God, these are the things in my life that I'm struggling with. These are the things in my life that I need help with. Then the second thing he tells 'em is that they should put away, that they should get rid of. They should remove themselves from the idols that they had in their life. They say, assy shall not save us. They're idol. What they were worshiping was the gods of these other nations. And it's turning away from that and recognizing, Hey, these false idols, these things are not going to be the things that save us. Instead, it should be God. They also say, our hands are not gonna be the things that save us. 

And how often is that the trap that we fall into, the thing that we often worship more than anything else is ourselves. And we think, well, if I just do enough, and I accomplish enough that that, okay, if I've, I've dug myself in a hole, but I'm gonna climb out of it myself. And it's a recognition that I can't do that I'm incapable of saving myself. And then it's this request of God for mercy. Ask for mercy. And you, the orphan finds mercy that we come empty handed to God, but we also come knowing that God loves us, the sin that they struggle with. Idolatry is the same sin that you see prevalent in our culture, prevalent with us, prevalent with me, that we constantly are taking things of this world and we are starting to worship those things. CS Lewis, in writing the weight of glory, he points to the absurdity of why we worship earthly things. 

Here's what he says. It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition. When infinite joy is offered to us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what it is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased. He, he's giving this example of, imagine a child in the slums, playing in the mud. An adult comes up and says, Hey, I I'm having mercy on you. Let me take you to the beach. Let me show you a holiday. Let me show you the ocean. And the kid, here's the offer, but looks down at the mud and says, nah, I'm good. No thanks. I'm just gonna keep playing in the mud right here where I am. 

See this Lewis is trying to say they don't understand. They can't comprehend what's available because they're distracted by this thing. If you're a parent and you've got kids, that this plays itself out just about every single day that I, I was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and I love the culture of the people of Houston, but it is an ugly city. And if you, if you love Houston, then, then you would admit that it's an ugly city, like it's bad weather. It's not the most beautiful place in the world, and you don't really realize that until you move to a new place that's better than that. And so all oftentimes here in Colorado, I mean for the last four years, it's just like, do you see the mountains? Isn't that amazing? Look at the color of the trees. And a few weeks ago, we were driving to school in the morning with my kids and I, I just a month straight was just like, look at the beautiful colors. Look at the leaves. Isn't it amazing? And one of my kids says, dad, we get it. They're just leaves. And there's a part of you that, that, that wants them to understand, Hey, you, you don't have the perspective that I have to have lived in an ugly place in order to appreciate the beauty of this place. You, you can just so easily 

Take it 

For granted, 

Or, or 

We're probably more extreme than that is 

A couple years ago 

For my wife's 

40Th 

Birthday, we went on a family trip and we stayed in an all inclusive 

Resort just for a 

Couple days. I'd never been in my entire life to an all inclusive 

Resort. 

And really what 

Is valuable about that is the free food, like the food 

Is the thing. And, and me, because I knew how expensive 

It was for us 

To go there, in the back of my mind it was like, 

If 

I eat enough things, 

This breaks 

Even. So how many of these nice things do I have to eat in order to 

Feel like they 

Lost money on me? Like, that's in my mind. What, what I'm going through. And I, and I remember towards the end of the trip we're, we're sitting with all of our family and all of our kids and we're having a conversation about all the things that we've done and all the fun. And one of the 

Kids says, yeah, but the food was just okay. I was 

Like, what do you mean? I was like, well, I don't really like their hot 

Dogs. 

And, and I'm, I'm looking, I'm like, hot 

Dogs, hot dogs. Like I wanted to 

Explain 

To the, to the kid, do you realize that there is a table of fruit that has 

Fruit that I've never even heard of? I didn't know it was a fruit flown from all over the world. 

And it's just right there. 

Like you can eat all that 

You want. And then there's a table of vegetables that that, that are 

Cooked in 19 different ways with 19 different flavors. 

And then over here in 

This section that 

They've got fish 

From all over the world. And next to 

The fish is a sushi chef that all they do every day, all day 

Is make sushi 

For you that is readily available for you to go 

Consume. And if you ever go 

Pay for the bill at a 

Sushi restaurant, you know 

That 

That's where you make it back right there in that section. 

And then over here, there, there's steak like, like all you could eat steak. Like you 

Just say, Hey, I want another steak. And you 

Tell 'em how you want the steak cooked. 

They even had Wagyu 

Beef over there. And I'm looking at 

This 

Child, 

I'm thinking, you've been eating hot 

Dogs when all of that is available to 

You. And that's exactly 

CS 

Lewis's point, 

CS 

Lewis is saying that 

So 

Often in this life and in this world, what 

We do is we get distracted by eating hot dogs. 

And God is saying, I've got so much available. 

I've 

Got so many things. If only 

You would turn 

And recognize and understand, simply put an idol is anything that I put 

Before God. 

It's anything that I rely on or 

I love or I obey more 

Than him. 

As a kid, 

I always thought, well, an idol is, is something physically that you make. And in the Old Testament oftentimes that that's what the 

Idols were. But 

But for us to understand idols, you don't have to have some physical idol in your house worshiping it for you to be practicing idolatry. That anything in your life, in my life 

That we elevate us up 

And we worship in place of God is an idol in our life. 

Look 

What it says in Psalm one 15, verse eight. It says, those who make them become like them. So do all who trust in them. And now on the surface you're like, what? What on earth does that mean? It's talking about idolatry. It's saying that when we make idols here, what, here's what we naturally do, those things that we gravitate towards in life, those things that we worship in life, that we start resembling those things. We start becoming more and more like those things. A Christian author, GK Beal, put it like this. He said, what people revere, they resemble either for ruin or for restoration, that when I was a kid, now, I loved Michael Jordan. I had Michael Jordan posters everywhere on my wall, and there was a season when I was in junior high and I'd be playing basketball and I would stick out my tongue while I was playing basketball. , 

Can I just go ahead and tell you that's absolutely stupid? I added zero value. I did not become better as a basketball player just because I started sticking out by my tongue. But why did I do it? Because Mike did, in order to be on, to be on, to be like Mike, like if he did it, if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. And do you know how much it helped my basketball game? Zero. Absolutely not. It probably hurt it because I had like a dry tongue all the time. But why did I do that? Because I had this, this reverence, this respect, this, this idol that I had, and I wanted to be more and more like him. And so I started imitating him and how I did things. And that, that's the point of idol adultry, that when we have idols in our life, when we revere things, when we worship things, that we become like those things, he right feel like this, that you become like what you worship. 

When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character, of the object of your worship. And so here's the question. What is that thing in my life that is an idol in my life? What are those things in my life that I naturally gravitate towards and I worship? Here's a simple idol test. Question number one is this. Do I look at it for my security or my identity more than God? It's interesting. I I think one of the, the most damaging things that exist in life is when someone struggles with deep, deep insecurity. And I found that insecurity often plays itself out in opposite extremes. That sometimes if someone is really insecure, it causes them to be very timid and they don't wanna interact with people and they're hesitant to talk and they feel so insecure or so concerned about what other people might think that it it forces them to not want to participate with other people, to not be loud or give their opinion. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have some people that they're so insecure that they end up becoming narcissistic. They become a megalomaniac, that they become loud and everything is about them. And what's really driving that is this deep-rooted insecurity and fighting, combating that deep rooted insecurity means that they're constantly trying to draw in everybody's attention to themselves. 

If 

There's one thing 

That I could gift 

To young people, kids and youth, 

It would be if 

They could find their value and their security and their identity, and Jesus, 

It will save you from a world of future hurt. Insecurity is a plague that we try to fill 

It with so many different things. 

But 

When we 

Create idols 

Where we say my identity, my value, my security is wrapped up in that thing, anything other than God that is an idol. A second idol test would 

Be this. Do I disobey God to keep it? Like, 

Do I have something in my life? And I'm like, I know I shouldn't do this. And I know God's word tells me I shouldn't do this. And I know if I asked 

Godly 

People in my life, they would say, I shouldn't do this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. 

Oftentimes 

That's that hidden sin. Well, hey, maybe nobody's ever gonna know about it. Maybe it's just this thing that, that I only am doing this either by myself or maybe with a certain group of 

People, but 

But the rest of my family that they don't ever need to know 

That 

Would be an idol. 

Also, does it 

Capture my heart, my time and my treasure 

First? This is where it's tricky because 

We often take things that are good things that we turn into idols and they become idols when they become the ultimate thing. Think of a good thing like if you're a parent in here and you've got kids, 

Your kids 

Are a wonderful gift from God. But oftentimes we can turn our children into an idol that we make them the ultimate thing that all of our, our heart, our time, our energy, our effort, 

It's all 

Revolving around them. And here's, there's two big challenges that come with that, that 

The first is this, that it is a 

Burden to bear on that child that 

Is far too heavy, that if, 

If made them my idol in life and everything 

Revolves 

Around them, that 

Is a huge pressure 

That when they don't live up to my 

Expectations, they, they feel distraught. 

The second challenge is this is if my life revolves around my kid, that can work fine for a season, but someday your kid is not gonna be that that person that you can just helicopter parent and make every decision for and fix every problem for like, at some point they become an adult and they probably don't want you checking their email and looking over their shoulder and everything that they're doing. And I've seen people 

That, that their whole life 

Revolved around their kid and then they get to this next stage of life and they just 

Felt 

Like the bottom fell out. 

Why be because 

Their children had become their idol in their 

Life. We can 

Take good things, but when we take good things and make them the ultimate thing, it's 

I idolatry God. And Jose is 

Warning against idol adultery. He, he said, I love you now. I wanna save you from destruction in order to save you from destruction. All these idols that you have in your life, you need to turn from them. And then in chapter 13, he's saying, when you don't turn from these idols, here's what's gonna happen. Here's gonna be the natural consequences. As 

A result of 

That 

Idolatry, 

He's saying, I'm going to allow these bad things to happen as a form of discipline. Now, now, when we think of discipline, we think of it always as a bad thing, but scripture doesn't talk about discipline as a bad thing. Look at what 

Hebrews chapter 12 says about discipline. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 

Five and six, say, my son, do not regard 

Lightly 

The discipline of the Lord. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves. He's saying, if God loves 

Us, he will 

Discipline us. The most unloving thing you can do to a kid is give them zero discipline whatsoever. 

Zero guardrails, zero 

Expectations. 

But if you love 

Your child, you are going to give them guardrails. You're going to discipline because you know the potential they have in the future. Then in verse 11, it says, for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. But 

Later, it yields 

The peaceful 

Fruit of 

Righteousness to those who have been trained by it. God is saying that when God 

Allows us to be 

Disciplined by the natural consequences of our sin, it's because 

He loves us. 

That, that when we chase after idols, when we have unrepentant sin in our life, that 

Here is 

What the natural order of how God created things to be, here's what's going to happen. It's going to lead towards 

Destruction. That 

If all my happiness and my worth 

Is 

Wrapped up in this thing, that the 

Reality is, all 

Of those things can be gone in a moment. When I make money my idol, 

You've 

Seen it time and time again, a bad business deal, a market crash, 

A tragedy, 

And the money's gone instantly. And if that's the idol of my life that I'm worshiping, and all of a sudden it's gone, what am I left with? 

People 

Make their health 

Their idol. That, that it is 

The most valuable, important thing in their life. 

But 

Here's the challenge with our health 

Is that 

If it becomes an idol, it can be gone in a moment's notice your family a good thing, a wonderful thing. But when it becomes an idol, it can be taken away from us. Our relationship with Jesus 

Is the 

One thing in this life that no matter what you face or I face or what might ever happen, it can never be taken away. And so God is saying, I'm gonna allow the natural consequence of sin in order to bring you back to me because 

I love you. 

Discipline isn't God paying us back. Instead, 

It's God 

Bringing us back. Discipline isn't rejection. It 

Is rescue 

That God is trying to draw us in. Hosea chapter 14, it's this combination of two things. It's this focus on repentance. It's saying, turn from your sin. Here's how you repent. Here's how you go after me. And then there's this promise of what's available. I love this prayer of repentance called the Jesus Prayer, the Desert Fathers, which was this, this group of of monks that were out in the desert that would just spend time all day, every day, prayer, prayerfully spending time with God. They, they crafted this Jesus prayer. And it's taken from Luke chapter 18, verse 13, when, when the Pharisees praying this righteous prayer, and then the tax collector just simply says, Jesus, have mercy on me. God have mercy on me. And, and Jesus says, that is the righteous prayer that I want you to pray. But at the heart of the Jesus prayer, this is what it means to have a repentant heart. 

It's just simply, Lord Jesus, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. It's recognizing that I have sin in my life, sin that maybe I'm unaware of, but God reveal that sin in my life so that I can work on it. And when we do that, there's this beautiful picture of what's available to us. Look at Isaiah 14 down in verse four. God says, I will heal their apostasy. Apostasy is total desertion or to abandon their faith or to have fallen away. May maybe that describes you in the room today. Maybe your faith has fallen away. Maybe you've turned your back on God. God is saying, I will heal your apostasy. I'll love them freely for my anger has turned from them. I'll be like, the do to Israel do is this picture of daily refreshment. He shall blossom like the lily, something beautiful. 

He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon. He's talking about stability. His shoots shall spread out. His beauty shall be like the olive fruitfulness, his fragrance like Lebanon, our fragrances, our public witness to the world around us. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow and shall flourish like the grain. They shall blossom like the vine. Their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon. Wine is this picture in the old t Old testament of celebration and joy. There's something that was used for events that God is saying He, what he wants available to us is this celebration and this joy. Oh, raim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress from me comes your fruit, that God's focus on repentance at the beginning of 14 is because in the middle of 14, he's saying this is what's available. And now I wanna pause for a second, because the false teaching of the prosperity gospel is so prevalent in our culture. What I don't want you to hear is that God is saying, Hey, if you follow after Jesus and you're gonna be rich and famous and wonderful and awesome and and have no problems whatsoever, 

'Cause basically that is idolatry. 

Like that's not what God is 

Saying. He's saying that 

When you follow 

After Jesus, 

God 

Put your faith, your, your worship 

In him instead of the fi 

False idols of this world. 

He's saying, then you will 

Have this beauty, this, 

This morning dew, 

The 

Fruitfulness, the fragrance, the celebration, the joy. These things are 

Available to us regardless of 

What is happening in our life. So it's saying that even when the bottom 

Falls 

Out and I am poor and I'm suffering and I'm in a stage of life 

Where 

I have no answers in those moments, because 

You've got Jesus, you still have joy and celebration 

And strength and stability 

Because of 

Our faith and our trust in him. 

The, the, the picture of 

Christianity, the picture of the 

Gospel is that God 

Is taking brokenness and he sweeping 

It 

Together. And out of that brokenness forms something that 

Is beautiful. 

It reminds me of Tsui. You ever seen tsui before? Tsui is a Japanese art of taking broken pottery and then piecing it back together. 

They use 

A lacquer mix with powdered 

Gold. So it takes the 

Cracks and instead of trying to make the cracks 

Disappear, it, it actually highlights 

Them and it takes the broken pieces and it turns it into the 

Beauty of the potter. Here's a picture 

Of one of those 

That this bowl 

Was broken and you could have tried to fix 

It 

Where you couldn't see the brokenness. But instead, can Sugi is saying, no, we're gonna highlight the brokenness, and by revealing the brokenness, it's actually gonna make the thing that was broken far more beautiful than it was before. And that's the 

Gospel that the God 

Is saying, 

That he takes 

The broken pieces of 

Your 

Life and my life and he puts them back to together in a way that makes what was broken, redeemed, and beautiful. Not because of 

What 

We have done, 

But because of what Jesus did 

For us on the 

Cross. How do we get there? 

By putting our faith, our 

Hope, our 

Trust in Jesus, and having a heart of repentance. It's 

That prayer. Lord Jesus, 

Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And, and here's what I found. It's 

Really hard 

To repent. And, and oddly enough, it's more hard 

For 

Christians to repent than it is for non-Christians to repent. 

That, that if you are a 

Christian, that the way God 

Sees us, that we are justified because 

Of our faith in Jesus. That means that, that 

God sees us 

As sinless when it comes to his 

Favor 

And his relationship with us. 

But 

It doesn't mean that I don't ever struggle with sin again. That the new system is full of helping us understand the process of sanctification means that the, the 

Further I I get closer to 

Jesus, the more it reveals my own sinfulness. And guess what? 

This side 

Of heaven, I've always got sin in my life. There's always junk. But I think the danger is, especially if you're around church a lot, is we can get to a place where're like, eh, I'm pretty good. And I think that happens for two dangerous reasons. One is just spiritual numbness. Like I come to church every week and I sing songs every week. I go through the motions every week. And it's this question of, is my heart really in it? And I, and I think that the second piece is comparative righteousness. Like if you ask me to point out sin in others people's lives, I'm really good at it. Like I can, I'm like one of the best. Like I'll tell you what's wrong with that person. Lemme tell you what's wrong with that. They don't know it. But this is the thing that they're struggling with. 

And probably you're in that same boat. Like you're good at comparing yourself to people around you and, and feeling righteous by comparison. I I never compare myself to people like Mother Theresa. That's not who I compare myself to. I compare myself to some family members that I'm like, yeah, I'm better than them. I'll tell you that or maybe that neighbor or, or that other family or that coworker and like, well, I'm, I'm doing pretty good compared to that person, but, but here's what at the heart of it, idolatry is, is idolatry is when my heart starts to roam and trend towards something other than God. And if I'm not constantly stamping that out, that's going to happen. I, I hear a lot of people talk about the brokenness of the world and our country and our culture, and oh, I wish things could be back to biblical moral values. 

And oftentimes what we use is we point to other people and their sins say, if they would just fix this, if they would just stop this. I love this quote by Charles Finney. Charles Finney was a Presbyterian pastor during the second great awakening, second great awakening. You, you saw so much of this huge move of God in the United States of America, so much so that the crime rate dropped drastically in the cities where God was moving. But here's what Charles Finney said about it. He said, A revival always includes a conviction of sin on the part of the church. He's saying, it starts with you and me. And it starts with in my heart, me saying, God, I recognize these things in my life that need to change. God, I recognize this sin in my life that's gotta change. And God, I'm gonna lay it at your feet.