How Does God See You? Small Group Follow-Up Study for Hosea 9:10-17

How Does God See You? Small Group Follow-up Study for Hosea 9:10-17 RE-READ [10] Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers. But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved. [11] Ephraim's glory shall fly away like a bird—no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! [12] Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them till none is left. Woe to them when I depart from them! [13] Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow; but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter. [14] Give them, O LORD—what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. [15] Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels. [16] Ephraim is stricken; their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, I will put their beloved children to death. [17] My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations. RECAP What can easily get lost in all the talk of miscarrying wombs and dry breasts are the two pictures of how God saw Israel. Before Baal-peor, God saw Israel as delightful. After Baal-peor, God saw Israel as detestable. Baal-peor, then, was a defining moment for Israel, a watershed incident that marked her for years to come. Subsequent reerences to Baal-peor appear in Numbers 31:16, in Deuteronomy 4:3, in Joshua 22:17, in Psalm 106:28, in Hosea 9:10 (our present text), and in 1 Corinthians 10:8. At Baal-peor, Israel ate what was sacrificed to the gods of the Moabites and, indeed, bowed down to their gods as well and became detestable like the thing they loved. How does God see you? Does he see you as a delight the way a traveller in the wilderness would delight in discovering a cluster of grapes or does he see you as detestable like a plant that has been stricken with blight? Those the LORD delights in know his promises of a land, a seed, and a blessing. Those the LORD finds detestable know his hand of judgment whether it be famine or exile or childlessness. The only way someone who is detestable in God’s sight can again be made delightful is to be found in Christ not having a righteousness of their own that comes from the law but the righteousness of and from God that depends upon faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. RESPOND 1. What caught your attention from Sunday’s sermon? What are you still thinking about/mulling over? What questions did Sunday’s sermon raise in your mind that you would like to discuss? 2. What masks do you tend to wear to hide yourself from others? What role, if any, should masks play in the church? Have you ever caught yourself thinking that God might be fooled by your mask(s)? What subsequent thoughts did that realization lead to? 3. Why is sin—in particular the sin of idolatry—so detestable in God’s sight? Why does sin make the sinner detestable in God’s sight? What ever happened to the idea that God hates the sin but loves the sinner (cf. esp. v. 16 “Every evil of there is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them.”)? 4. What is it about being in Christ that makes detestable people delightful to God? 5. What other metaphors can you think of in scripture that picture for us God’s delight in his people? .

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