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Greetings everyone from Trinity 
Reformed Baptist Church in Armstrong. It's a joy to be here again this 
evening to worship together with you and to look at God's Word 
together. You can turn with me to the book 
of Hosea. Again, the book of Hosea. It's 
the first of the minor prophets. You can turn to chapter 7. Hosea 
chapter 7. We're just gonna look at one 
verse this afternoon or this evening, verse eight, but I will 
read the entire chapter here just so we have the context for 
us as we go on here. So first, beginning at verse 
one, sorry, of Hosea chapter seven. When I would have healed 
Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered, and the 
wickedness of Samaria, for they have committed fraud. A thief 
comes in, a band of robbers takes plunder outside. They do not 
consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. 
Now their own deeds have surrounded them. They are before my face. 
They make a king glad with their wickedness, and princes with 
their lies. They are all adulterers, like 
an oven heated by a baker. He ceases stirring the fire after 
kneading the dough until it is leavened. In the day of our king, 
princes have made him sick, inflamed with wine. He stretched out his 
hand with scoffers. They prepare their heart like 
an oven while they lie in wait. Their baker sleeps all night 
and in the morning it burns like a flaming fire. They are all 
hot like an oven and have devoured their judges. All their kings 
have fallen. None among them calls upon me. 
Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples. Ephraim is a cake 
unturned. Aliens have devoured his strength, 
but he does not know it. Yes, gray hairs are here and 
there on him, yet he does not know it. And the pride of Israel 
testifies to his face, but they do not return to the Lord their 
God, nor seek him for all this. Ephraim also is like a silly 
dove without sense. They call to Egypt, they go to 
Assyria. Wherever they go, I will spread my net on them. I will 
bring them down like birds of the air. I will chastise them 
according to what their congregation has heard. Woe to them, for they 
have fled from me. Destruction to them, because 
they have transgressed against me. Though I redeemed them, yet 
they have spoken lies against me. They did not cry out to me 
with their heart when they wailed upon their beds. They assemble 
together for grain and new wine. They rebel against me. Though 
I disciplined and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil 
against me. They return but not to the Most 
High. They are like a treacherous bow. 
Their princes shall fall by the sword for the cursings of their 
tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. Amen. Well, 
let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we do come 
before you now and we appeal to you for the power of your 
Holy Spirit to be here among us this evening as we examine 
your word. Father, we pray that you might 
be here in that special way, that this day or this time now 
would give us just a foretaste of that glory that is to come, 
where we gather with your people for all of eternity in your presence 
and hear from you and sing your praises. And Lord, how we thank 
you that we have this time now to hear from you. through the 
Word being preached. And Father, we do ask that Your 
Spirit would be here now. We know without the Spirit, it 
is but a dead word. So Father, we pray for that. 
We pray that You would take this message, You would use it and 
accomplish it for all the purposes that You have intended for it. 
That it would be for the strengthening of Your people, for the edifying 
of Your people and building them up. That it would be for the 
salvation of souls and that it would be for Your honor and glory. 
And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So the prophet Hosea, he 
was sent by God to the nation of Israel, essentially as God's 
prosecuting attorney. Pastor Butler preached half my 
sermon there when he commented on Deuteronomy. 18. But that was the reality of it. 
God had taken Israel. He was their own, or his own, 
special people that he had taken for himself. He had given them 
a law to follow. They were not to follow the laws 
and the customs of the nations around them. They were to follow 
the law of their God, Yahweh, the Lord. And they were supposed 
to obey that law in complete and in perfect fidelity, perfect 
faithfulness, to him. They were not supposed to add 
to it. They weren't supposed to take away things he wanted. Perfect 
obedience, perfect faithfulness to him. And in the book of Hosea, 
if you know anything about it, if you remember from a few months 
ago when I was here, we looked at earlier in the book the comparison 
of the marriage relationship that God uses to show this to 
Israel. Essentially, Israel was was Yahweh's bride. He was the 
bridegroom. She was the bride. He had taken 
her to be his bride, but she had been an unfaithful bride. 
She had gone and committed spiritual adultery with the gods of the 
nations that were around and worshipped those gods. So Hosea 
now is is God's prosecuting attorney and essentially what he's doing 
is God is Yahweh is filing for divorce He says I'm going to 
cut you off. I'm going to divorce you but 
all through those court proceedings in this book here, we see God 
always promises that he's going to divorce them, he's going to 
cut them off, that is the just reward that they deserve for 
their sin, yet he is going to provide a way that they can be 
reconciled, that that relationship can be restored again, because 
he loves them so much. So he's gonna provide that way 
where they can be healed of their sin problem, that put this, separated 
them, They had to acknowledge. You 
can see it if you turn to chapter 5, verse 15. They had to acknowledge 
their offense, he says here. To recognize that they had actually 
sinned against God. That this was fair, what God 
was doing. Cutting them off and exiling them out of the land. 
They had to acknowledge their offense and then they had to 
seek the Lord for forgiveness in chapter 6, verse 1. Come, let us return to the Lord. 
He has torn, but He will heal us. God, they were to seek Him 
for the healing, for forgiveness. God always provided that way. But throughout this book, so 
much of the book contains charge after charge of Yahweh charging 
His people for their infidelity, their unfaithfulness to Him. 
And Hosea is presenting all the evidence, and he's presenting 
the evidence, the justification for this divorce, for this separation. There. And Hosea is the master 
of the analogy. You probably picked that up when 
we read through this chapter here in verse 7. He's the master 
of the analogy here. He's used several baking analogies 
in verses 4 through 8, actually. He's we have an analogy of a 
silly dove in verse 11 not knowing how to not Recognizing the danger 
that it's in of judgment God's judgment coming like a silly 
dove the analogy of a bow with a floppy bowstring Translated 
here as a treacherous bow in verse 16 defenseless against 
God's judgment But today I want to look at the analogy in verse 
8 there that Ephraim is a cake unturned Now Ephraim here, just 
so we're clear, Ephraim is another name for Israel, the northern 
kingdom in the context here that we're talking about. Ephraim 
was the biggest, had one of the biggest tribes there, so often 
Ephraim is used just to reference Israel in general. So we're talking 
about Israel here. So first we'll look at the analogy, 
we'll unpack the analogy here of the cake unturned, and we'll 
see how it applies to the nation of Israel in context, and then 
we're gonna see how it applies to us today. So Hosea, He's been 
using these baking analogies. He's been on a roll with them. 
And now he comes, he starts to use another baking analogy in 
verse eight. And he says here, Ephraim is 
a cake unturned. So he's describing Israel as 
a pancake. the type of bread that was baked 
in a pan, not bread that was baked in an oven, but bread that 
was baked in a pan over a fire. Now, the Israelites wouldn't 
have had the flapjack pancakes that we think of today when we 
think of pancakes, but the principle is the same, mixing batter together, 
cooking it in a pan, and just the way that we would make pancakes 
today. So we can have the pancake, the flapjack pancake in our minds, 
in order to help us understand the analogy here. So kids imagine 
that it's a Saturday morning and your parents say, you know 
what, let's go out for breakfast. Let's go out for breakfast. So 
you go to Denny's or something. I don't know if there's a Denny's 
in this town, but we all know Denny's. So let's go, let's say 
we're gonna go out to Denny's for breakfast. And you go to 
the restaurant, you sit down at the table, the waitress gives 
you the menus and you start looking at the menu And you see the picture 
of this pancake. It's beautiful. It's just golden 
brown on there. Your mouth starts to water. And 
then the waitress comes around. And she says, can I take your 
order? And you point to the picture on the menu. And you said, I 
want that. I want that pancake. It looks so good. So you sit 
there. Feels like forever. It's only 
a few minutes, but it feels like forever. But then the waitress 
starts to bring the food out. She brings out your family stuff. 
She gives your brother. She gives him his food. He's 
ordered the pancake, too. You look at it. Oh, it looks 
so good. Your mouth starts to water. And then you just can't wait 
to get yours. You can't wait to cover it in syrup. Aunt Jemima 
syrup. Well, we can't say that anymore, 
can we? It's now something else. But you want to cover it in syrup. 
And you want to eat it. It looks so good. But then the 
waitress puts your plate in front of you and you take a look at 
it. You sit back in shock. It doesn't 
look anything like the picture. It looks awful. It's not nice 
and golden at all. It's raw. It's gooey. There's 
gooey batter on the top. The pancake and you kind of you 
take your fork and you lift up the edge and you see it's just 
burnt on the bottom It's black. It's gross. Well, what happened? 
Well, the cook never the cook didn't flip your pancake It's 
it's unturned to use the language here. He flipped your brother's 
pancake That's why it looks so good. And and and it looks like 
that one looks like the picture but yours it looks so It looks 
so gross. It never got flipped. It's and 
it's displeasing You take your plate and you push it away. It's 
displeasing. What a disappointment. Well, 
that's what God says to Israel here. He says, that's exactly 
what you are to me. You're like this pancake that 
didn't get flipped. You're not pleasing. You're revolting 
to me. Why? Because God had given Israel 
his law. He had, Taken Israel, they were 
his people. He gave them a law. The law was 
to reflect his goodness and his justice, or his truth and justice. They were supposed to live according 
to that law as a reflection of who he was. And he pointed to 
that law like it was the Denny's menu. And he says, this is what 
I want. I want this from you. He pointed to that. Just like 
the prophet Micah says, he has shown you, oh man, what is good. 
He pointed, he said, this is what I want, Israel. But Israel 
looked nothing like the picture. Israel looked nothing at all. 
They did not reflect that law at all. They had violated that 
law in every way possible, their sin. And they looked nothing, 
nothing like it. Well, why was that? Well, that's 
what the first part of the verse tells us. Ephraim has mixed himself 
among the peoples. So this is another baking reference 
now that he's using again here. He's mixed himself, the idea 
of mixing the batter. Like a baker who's mixed the 
wrong ingredients into the pancake batter, Israel had mixed wrong 
ingredients into their life as a nation. They were supposed 
to be a nation that was different, completely different than the 
other nations. What we just read in Deuteronomy 18, they were 
not supposed to do the things that the other nations did. They 
were supposed to obey God's laws and not mingle with the other 
nations there. God had told them that many times 
through the Old Testament. He always said to them, I've 
separated you from the nations. You were different. You're to 
be different. You're to You're to separate yourselves from the 
nations around you and not look like them, not mingle in their 
lifestyles and practices and worship of their gods. When in 
Numbers 23, that's the story of the prophet Balaam and Balak, 
the king of Moab. And he hired Balaam, who was 
an ungodly wicked man, but Yet God used that ungodly man. Balak 
hired him to curse Israel, but instead God caused Balaam to 
bless Israel. One of the things that he said 
about the Israelites, he says, I see a people dwelling alone, 
not reckoning themselves as one of the nations. Israel was supposed 
to be different. They were supposed to represent 
their God. They were supposed to represent 
Yahweh by obeying His laws, by reflecting who their God was. Their society as a nation in 
a political outward way would reflect who their God was. Their 
society would be peaceful and stable if they followed all of 
those laws. All of the nations around them 
would be ruling Ruling by that according to the 
laws of their own gods little g gods and their societies would 
be chaotic as a result of that there would be You can read Psalm 
82 if you want to if you want to to learn more about that But 
where God indicts essentially he's talking to the gods of those 
nations, but he's saying there's there's no truth There's no justice. 
How long will you afflict the poor and will you will you have 
be unfaithful or an injustice and That's what the nations around 
them were like. Israel was supposed to be different. 
They're supposed to display the glory of their God when they 
lived according to his laws as a nation. But as a result of 
that, as a result of mixing in the practices of the nations 
around them, they are no longer pleasing to Yahweh. They're like 
an unflipped pancake now, burnt on one side, gooey, uncooked 
batter on the other side. Good for nothing, displeasing, 
something you would spit out of your mouth. And that's what 
God says to them. Now I wanna see something else 
here that's gonna help us to draw out a few points from the 
pancake motif in connection to Old Testament worship. Turn to 
Leviticus chapter two. Leviticus chapter two. We'll begin at verse four. And if you bring as an offering, 
a grain offering baked in the oven, it shall be with unleavened 
cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed 
with oil. But if your offering is a grain 
offering baked in a pan, so that's what we're talking about here 
in Hosea, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened, mixed with 
oil. You shall break it in pieces 
and pour oil on it as a grain offering. And if your offering 
is a grain offering baked in a covered pan, it shall be of 
fine flour You shall bring the grain offering that is made of 
these things to the Lord. And when it is presented to the 
priest, he shall bring it to the altar. Then the priest shall 
take from the grain offering a memorial portion and burn it 
on the altar. And it is an offering made by 
fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord. What is left of the grain offering 
shall be Aaron and his sons. It is most holy of the offerings 
to the Lord made by fire. No grain offering which you bring 
to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no 
leaven nor any honey in any offering to the Lord made by fire. As 
for the offering of the firstfruits, you shall offer them to the Lord, 
but they shall not be burned on the altar for a sweet aroma. 
And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with 
salt, and you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your 
God to be lacking from your grain offering, with all your offerings 
you shall offer salt." Now, I read all those verses because we see 
here very clearly this grain offering was about preparing 
something and presenting something to the Lord as an offering, as 
part of worship. But very specific ingredients 
are listed here, and they couldn't add any leaven, they couldn't 
add any honey. God was very clear what He required of them, and 
they had to ensure they had They had the fine flour, and they 
had the oil, and they had the salt. So mixing in any of these 
other ingredients, he tells us very clearly, would not be acceptable 
to the Lord. And this specific grain offering 
is representative of the entire law of God that he's given to 
them here, of all aspects of it there that they could not 
add, they could not take away from them. God had given the 
law, he'd given them the moral law, he had given them the civil 
law, which told them how to structure their society. He had given them 
the ceremonial law, which told them how to worship him. And 
he said, this is what I want from you. But instead, they had 
used the wrong ingredients. They had mingled themselves with 
the nations. They were displeasing to God 
as a result of that. From the moral perspective, they 
had completely defiled themselves. There was theft, there was killing, 
there was adultery, lying, cheating, coveting, worshipping other gods, 
worshipping the golden calves that the King Jeroboam had set 
up. They were like the nations around them. They had mixed in 
that lifestyle, immoral lifestyle, into their own. From a civil 
perspective, the rulers didn't rule according to truth and justice, 
and truth and mercy. If you go back to Hosea, we see 
that in chapter 4. of Hosea, the charge against 
the Israelites. There's no truth or mercy or 
knowledge of God in the land. They're swearing, lying, killing, 
stealing, committing adultery, breaking all restraint, bloodshed 
upon bloodshed. So they were, as a society, life 
as society was chaotic. They were not following those 
civil laws. From a ceremonial perspective, they were, and when 
it came to the worship of God, they were mixing in all types 
of other styles of worship, such as the way, the methods in which 
the pagans, the nations around them worship their God, and they 
were full out worshipping those gods as well. They were worshipping 
Baal and Moloch, and Chemosh, Marduk, all those other gods. 
They were worshipping them. And the fact that they were mixing 
in pagan worship styles into their worship of Yahweh, what 
they said was worshipping Yahweh, all of that made their worship 
so displeasing to Yahweh. And even as they tried to worship 
Him, It was displeasing to them. Yahweh wanted complete fidelity. 
He wanted perfect faithfulness. Again, think of the marriage 
relationship here. A husband is not pleased. If his wife, even though she 
sleeps with another man, that she still sleeps with him too? 
Of course not. Obviously not. And that's how 
Yahweh says this to Israel. They were, Israel was, that's 
what they were doing. They were worshiping other gods, 
being unfaithful in the way that a wife would be unfaithful to 
her husband. Their worship was abominable 
to Yahweh. Displeasing, like this unflipped pancake. And that's the reason. If you 
look at the rest of the chapter, we're not going to look at those 
verses, but the rest of the chapter tells us God is going to send 
judgment upon them because of this, because of their unfaithfulness 
to Him, because they have not kept those laws and kept them 
perfectly and presented themselves as God had said here's my law 
pointed to it This is what I want from you like it was the Denny's 
menu and yet when all of their all of their sin and all of their 
unfaithfulness made them displeasing to God and worthy of judgment 
the rest of the chapter says that God is going to come and 
judge them for it and But what does this mean for us? We can 
read this, we can look at the nation of Israel and think, wow, 
that's, I can't believe they would do that. God, they were 
God's special people. God, and all they had to do was 
follow his laws. But they went after other gods. But we're not 
looking, we're not looking, I think I said this last time, we're 
not looking through a window at the nation of Israel. We need 
to look at this passage as a mirror. How does it show, what does it 
have to do with us? Well, it's very similar. It's 
the same, essentially. God created us, mankind, to be 
His image-bearers. That means that we are supposed 
to reflect the character of God according to our creaturely capacities, 
according as we as creatures, we are to reflect God's character, 
as it were, as His image-bearers. We are to image Him. We are to 
be like God. Just like the nation of Israel, 
as I said, was supposed to reflect the goodness and the truth, the 
justice and the mercy of their God as a nation, they're supposed 
to reflect that we, on an individual level, are supposed to reflect 
the goodness and the holiness of our God, because we are His 
image-bearers to image Him. And God gave us His law that 
shows us exactly how we are to live. He wrote it on our hearts, 
He gave it to us in His word, It tells us exactly how we are 
to live in a way that reflects His glory. He pointed to that 
law like it was the Denny's menu and says, this is what I want 
from you. This is what is pleasing to me. He says, I want you to 
look exactly like this picture, this law. As Peter says, God 
wants us to, we're to be holy as He is holy. And that's what 
we need to understand. God demands perfection. He demands perfect obedience 
to that law. He does not demand our best effort. He's not satisfied with, well, 
I'm a pretty good person. No, he wanted perfection. That's 
what he ordered. He gave us that law and he says, 
this is what I want. Recently, last week, I actually 
had a conversation with an individual and he said to me, I'm not perfect, 
but I'm not a sinner. And I said, what? He said, because 
he had classified in his mind little sins were imperfections, 
and the big sins, murder and adultery and bank robbery, those 
were sins, but he was just imperfect, but he wasn't a sinner. But it 
doesn't work that way. God tells us whatever is not 
perfect obedience to my law is sin. Even if you've stolen a 
cookie from the cookie jar when you were a kid, that was the 
only thing you've ever done that was wrong. That's a sin. Or looking 
with lust upon someone. Jesus tells us clearly, that's 
a sin. You've broken that law, and now you no longer look like 
the image that God wants you to be. That goes for every single 
one of us. Maybe you're like Israel, maybe 
you've done some sort of an outward, heartless religion, you went 
to church, maybe you went to church your whole life, perhaps. 
But that doesn't matter. Just like Israel, that outward 
going through the motions of a heartless religion wasn't pleasing 
to God. We've sinned. We have mixed sin 
into the batter of our lives. And that makes us displeasing 
to God, as displeasing as an unflipped pancake. And we would push that away, 
we're displeased, it's revolting. As a result of that, we're bound 
for judgment, just like Israel here. God will come in judgment 
upon those who because of their sin, because of the violation 
of his law. Unless, of course, just like 
Israel, as I mentioned already, chapter 5, unless we acknowledge 
our offense, we acknowledge the reality that we don't have a 
perfect life to present to God. Because of our sin, we acknowledge 
our offenses. Then we come and we return to 
the Lord in an appeal for mercy, in an appeal for forgiveness 
and an appeal for him to heal us, as he says in chapter 6, 
verse 1, trusting in the healing remedy that he has provided for 
us. Well, we know, as new covenant believers, We know that the healing 
remedy that God has provided, the cure that God has provided 
for our sin problem is His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
If we had to present ourselves on our own before God, it's like 
presenting an unflipped, a half-baked pancake that would repulse God. But God made that way where we 
can have a new, we don't have to present ourselves. We have 
a representative. We can have a representative 
who presents himself for us, God's own son. And Pastor Butler 
already said this before. What did God say about his son 
when he was baptized and on the mountain of transfiguration? 
What did he say? Voice from heaven said, this 
is my beloved son, what in whom I am well pleased. God is well 
pleased with his son. He's not well pleased with us, 
with our presentation, but he's well pleased with his son. We don't have that, but anything 
that's, we can't present perfectly pleasing life to God but Christ 
can Christ he took upon himself a human nature he came he was 
born in Bethlehem last couple weeks we've been Traditionally 
is the time of year when we consider those things the incarnation 
that the Son of God took upon himself a human nature Why did 
he do that so that he could come and live? in obedience to this 
law, born under the law, says Paul, so that he might redeem 
those who are under the law. Because the law, we have failed 
to live up to that law, but Christ came and lived under that law 
in perfect obedience to the law. And his life was a life of perfect 
obedience. And he could present himself, 
the writer of Hebrews says, he's the express image of his person, 
perfectly in his humanity on this earth, perfectly imaged 
God, perfectly matched up with that law, with that picture. 
of what God was requiring. Christ presented a life that 
was well-pleasing to God. He's the only one who's ever 
done that. The only man who has ever lived a life that is perfectly 
well-pleasing to God. And it's his life that can become 
ours and represent us before God so that we don't have to 
present ourselves to God and present our half-baked, unflipped 
pancake of an excuse for a life towards Him. We have Christ that 
can be our representative. Think back to the grain offering 
that we read from in Leviticus chapter 2. The person had to 
prepare this grain offering, and they had to present it. It 
was a pancake. They had to present it as an 
offering to God. They had to make it exactly how 
God had determined. The right ingredients, None of 
the wrong ingredients there and present it to God. And it was 
to be as a sweet smelling aroma that pleases God. Turn to Ephesians 
5. This is where we see Christ. 
Christ doing this in his life. Ephesians 5 verse 2. Walk in love as Christ also loved 
us and gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God 
for a sweet-smelling aroma. Remember the sweet-smelling aroma 
in Leviticus 2, that it would be to God if you did this just 
right and just perfectly and just so. Well, we've already 
seen we can't do that. We failed to do that in our lives, 
but Christ did. He gave himself as an offering. The Greek word is prosphero. That means to carry something 
forward. It means to present something. And that was his perfect 
life of obedience. Perfectly living in obedience 
to the law of God. Not to cheapen the work of Christ, 
but to keep with the analogy, Christ presented the perfect 
golden brown Pancake that matched exactly what the menu said it 
should look like that's what Christ did is he presented his 
life Prospero put his life forward as a as an offering to God perfectly 
accepted a sweet-smelling Sacrifice a sweet-smelling aroma. He says 
here, but Christ also did something else. It tells us he it says 
he gave himself not only as an offering but also as a sacrifice 
and that was well-pleasing to God. The sacrifice. Sacrifice 
is giving up something, not putting something forward, but the giving 
up of something for God, the giving up of his life is what 
it was there. Christ, because he was perfect, 
because he was pleasing to God, he became worthy and he became 
acceptable in God's eyes, but he also became then a sacrifice 
for that was acceptable on that cross. When he offered himself to pay 
for all the sins and all the shortcomings and all the failures 
of his people, all those they had mixed in, all of that sin, 
and that had caused them to be this displeasing, unflipped pancake, 
Christ takes all of that sin, pays for it all in full so that 
we can be forgiven. That's the gospel. That's the 
good news here, according to Hosea, that we don't have this 
in and of ourselves. We can't present ourselves acceptable 
to God because we are not perfect. God demanded perfection, but 
Christ is. Christ is perfect, and Christ 
also pays for our failure to be perfect so that we can be 
accepted with God. And that's for everyone who believes 
in Him, everyone who recognizes that reality, as already said 
in chapter 6 or chapter 5, acknowledging your offenses, recognizing the 
fact that you aren't perfect and God demands perfection because 
He is so holy and He said, this is what I want from you. And again, that doesn't matter 
if you've committed the most heinous of sins and heinous of 
crimes you could imagine, or if you've, as R.C. Sproul would 
say, committed the tiniest peccadillo. Whichever one it is, either way, 
we can't present that perfect life. But Christ can, and Christ 
does. That's for all who believe in 
Him. He will represent them before 
God, and then we can be forgiven, and we can be accepted in God's 
sight. The relationship can be restored again because of Christ. Don't ever lose sight of that. Believer, if you're here, if 
you're a believer, don't lose sight of that. We talk a lot 
in the Reformed traditions, we talk a lot about living a life 
of obedience to God, living according to His laws, that we're supposed 
to be doing that, and we're right. Never subconsciously start to 
think that because I'm doing so well, and I'm living in obedience 
to God's laws, that's what's making me right with God, or 
that's what's making my entrance into heaven, God accepting me 
into heaven because of that. Never lose sight of the fact 
that it is Christ, Him alone. It's His perfect life, His death. 
that allow entrance into heaven for anyone, for all who believe 
in Him. But for those who are believers 
in Christ, redeemed, we're redeemed image bearers. That's what Paul 
says, we're redeemed image bearers and we are then to be conforming 
our lives and changing our lives back to look like, back to image 
our God again. To be conformed to the image 
of Christ because that's to be conformed to the image of God 
for which we were created. We are supposed to be. We are 
supposed to be doing that, transforming our lives, casting out sin, putting 
on good works. Turn to Hebrews chapter 9 for 
a moment. Hebrews chapter 9, verse 13. For if the blood of bulls and 
goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies 
for the purifying of the flesh, so he's talking about Old Testament 
worship there, and then verse 14, how much more shall the blood 
of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without 
spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the 
living God? Christ's death on our behalf 
cleanses our conscience, it breaks us free from the bondage of sin, 
as Paul says in Romans, in Romans chapter 6, he talks about that, 
but it breaks us free of that. So then we can serve the living 
God, so that we can do works that are pleasing to Him, having 
been redeemed, having been broken free. Turn to chapter 13 in Hebrews, 
if you're still there. Verse 20. Now may the God of peace, who 
brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd 
of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
make you complete in every good work to do His will, working 
in you what is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, 
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Christ, by the power 
of His Spirit, working in us, with us, working us, striving 
to that end, we are to be conformed back to the image. of Christ, 
we're to be complete. That complete is the word, the 
Greek word telos, reaching its goal, its purpose, the purpose 
for which we were created, image bearers of God. We broke that, 
we failed, but Christ redeems us and now he conforms us back 
towards that end, towards that goal of being like Christ, being 
an image bearer of God. And again, this is not so that 
we can be accepted with God, this is because we are through 
Christ, if we have faith in Christ, this comes after. We have to 
remember, your pastor tells you this all the time, the law points 
us to Christ, because we failed to keep the law. But we come 
to Christ, we find forgiveness, and then Christ points us back 
to the law. And again, that law, it's like 
the picture on the Denny's menu. We need to, we want to be conformed 
to that. We want to change our lives. 
And through the life of what we call sanctification, cleaning 
up our lives in order to look more and more like, in obedience 
to his law, and look like that picture on the Denny's menu. And now, if you're back in Hosea, 
turn back there again, what was it that made Israel unacceptable 
with God and so displeasing? Well, it was the fact that they 
were mixing themselves among the peoples, mixing themselves 
among the nations around them, mixing themselves with the world. 
So as we work by the power of the Holy Spirit to conform our 
lives back to the image of the one, the image of God, the one 
whose image we are created in, we need to remove worldliness. We need to remove sin, excuse 
me, from our lives, ridding ourselves of whatever is in opposition 
to the will of God, to the revealed will of God. Turn to Colossians. Sorry, I'm getting you to jump 
around a lot here, but you can turn to Colossians where we see 
this. Chapter one, verse nine. For this reason, we also, since 
the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that 
you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and 
spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, 
fully pleasing him and being fruitful in every good work and 
increasing in the knowledge of God. Paul prays here that they 
would be filled with the knowledge of his will, the knowledge of 
God's will. That's his word, his law that 
tells us how we are supposed to be living. It's the Denny's 
menu with the picture on it that we are supposed to conform ourselves 
to. So we need to grow in that and 
study that so we know what it is that pleases our Maker and 
our Redeemer, removing the sin from our lives. Now we ought, I had a section 
here about doing that on a corporate level, when it comes to worshiping 
on a corporate level, and we can apply it that way, but I 
think you're very familiar here with the regulative principle 
of worship. It's that same principle, removing the worldliness and 
only doing what God requires here. But anyways, I want to 
keep looking at this on a personal level here. We ought not to be 
mingling worldliness in with our Christianity, in the sense 
of our lives as Christians, who we are as redeemed image bearers, 
where all week we go to work, we look like the world, there's 
no difference about us, then we come to church on Sunday, 
and then we look like Christians again, or maybe whenever we hang 
out with our friends, we look like the world, and then we're 
home with our families, then we act more like Christ again. Or we watch movies, we watch, 
you know, listen to music that the world promotes. I want to 
be careful here, that doesn't mean that we can only listen 
to choirs singing psalters and we can only watch Kendrick Brothers 
movies. That's not what I'm saying at 
all here, but we have to, we need to make sure that and be 
on guard that what we're watching, what we're listening to, that 
we're not using the world's standard of what's acceptable, but we're 
using God's standard as revealed in his word. It's not, we cannot 
mix. Christianity and the world, Christianity 
and, or sin in our lives. God wants our heart. We saw that. He wants fidelity. 
He wants faithfulness to him. So we ought to be working to 
that end. Do not quench the Spirit, the 
Spirit who's working in us to conform us, to make us complete, 
to bring us to that goal. Don't quench that. Work with 
Him. Don't try to live with one foot in both camps, one foot 
in the world and one in the church. We want to be living a life in 
accordance with His will. Conforming our lives more and 
more growing to becoming looking more and more like that picture 
on the on of the pancake on the menu there he God He wants us to be conformed to 
His image. That is why we were created. 
That is our purpose for being here. If you ever ask yourself, 
why are we here? How do I know what my purpose 
is in this life? That's your purpose, to image 
God. That's the only thing that can 
give you purpose in this life, to be redeemed. to be restored, 
to be renewed as an image bearer, and then work to that end. That 
needs to be the ultimate goal. That is the only thing that can 
bring you purpose. Last week at Trinity, I preached 
from 2 Peter 3, 17 and 18, sort of as a New Year's resolution. Peter says, Beware, lest you 
fall from your own steadfastness and being led away with error 
of the wicked. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord 
and Savior, Jesus Christ, we're to be steadfast, diligent, Peter 
says in verse 14, to be diligent, intentional in our walk with 
the Lord, growing in the knowledge of our Savior. And the knowledge 
gives us the foundation so we can grow in those Christian graces, 
living that out in our lives. don't have a lackadaisical attitude 
towards the Christian life. We see that, unfortunately, so 
much around us. have no worry that they're mixing 
themselves with the peoples. They're in the sense of mixing 
sin into their lives. They're not so concerned about 
that. Oh, I'm in. I'm in. Well, God says no. He does not want that. It's displeasing 
to him. We are to be conformed to his 
image. We don't have that lackadaisical 
attitude. Be intentional, be steadfast, 
be diligent, as Peter says, conforming our lives to His image, using 
His word, His will, growing in that, understanding that. We 
sang Psalter 119. How many of you can say that, 
what we sang? How I love your law. I meditate 
on it day and night. I keep your commandments. we need to be working to that 
end. But again, we can never forget the gospel, never forget 
the gospel, the good news, the fact that As we're working towards 
godliness, as we desire that as his people, never forget, 
for one, that our shortcomings are forgiven. We try, and we 
see ourselves fail, and we want to beat ourselves up about it. 
But God says, no, you're forgiven. You're accepted in Christ. It's 
not about your performance that makes you accepted with me. You're 
accepted because of Christ. Again, that's not an excuse to 
sin, but if our heart is right, it's a blessed reminder that 
we have while we're striving to live in a way that glorifies 
Him. It's a blessed reminder that our sin is forgiven, all 
those failures. and shortcomings are forgiven. 
But again, never forget the fact that we are saved, we are accepted 
with God, we are pleasing to God, we're loved by God because 
of Christ, because of His perfect obedience, because He's paid 
for all of our shortcomings. Never lose sight of the gospel. 
Yes, we want to live in obedience to Him, but we are accepted with 
God because of Christ. He is our representative before 
God. We're united to him by faith. We're accepted by God in God's 
sight because of Christ. Remember what I said at the beginning? 
This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Well, if we 
have faith in Christ, he's our representative and now God is 
well pleased and we're accepted because of him. Never forget 
that. And if you're here this evening 
and if you're not a believer, What we've just talked about 
the last few minutes here, about removing sin from your lives, 
that's not where you start. You don't start by trying to 
clean up your act, trying to fix yourself, trying to make 
yourself acceptable to God somehow. You can't. You've sinned, you've 
failed, you've already fallen short. You can't try. You need 
to believe in Jesus. That's where you start, believing 
in Him. the one with whom God is well 
pleased. Trust in him, acknowledge your 
offense, recognize the fact you have sinned. You can't present 
a perfect life to God, but Christ can. And he says, whoever believes 
will be forgiven, will have this righteousness that makes you 
worthy, that you are then accepted in the beloved, as Paul says. 
Our sin is forgiven. And we no longer stand deserving 
of the judgment that is spelled out in the rest of the chapter 
here. Judgment of Hosea 7. Judgment for violating the law. But we can be forgiven of that 
trust in the Lord Jesus today. That's where you begin. Then 
we go on. Then we go on to live a life of obedience, intentional, 
as Peter says, diligent, steadfast, growing in the grace and knowledge 
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, let's close there 
in prayer. Lord, how we do thank you for 
this passage of Scripture. We thank you for these analogies 
that Hosea gives to us that make it so clear, the gospel so clear 
to us in our precarious position before you, if we were to present 
ourselves on our own, worthy of being Pushed away by you cast 
away thrown into outer darkness because we are so displeasing 
but father how we thank you for that one who offered himself 
as a sweet-smelling Aroma accepted in your sight Lord so that we 
can have acceptance with you again and that we by our union 
with him through faith can now be accepted in the beloved and 
we can be reconciled with our Creator and with our through 
our your son our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ father, please take 
this message and apply it to the hearts here, that your people 
would leave here encouraged, strengthened in the reminder 
that we are, that it's not about our performance that makes us 
right with you, encouraged to press on in our walk with the 
Lord, in our conformity to the image of Christ. Father, we pray 
you would take this message and apply it to the hearts of any 
here who may not be in Christ who have not acknowledged their 
offense, who have not come to you for forgiveness through the 
Lord Jesus Christ, that today that they would see that the 
Savior and come and trust in Him and Him alone and know then 
that they are right with their Creator and that they are bound 
for glory with Him. Father, we pray to that end. 
We pray you'd be glorified here and now and it's in Jesus' name 
that we pray. Amen.