Hosea 06: Shallow Promises VS Deep Promises

The reckless love of God takes center stage in Hosea chapter 6, where we confront the stark difference between our shallow promises and God's deep covenant faithfulness. When was the last time you made a desperate bargain with God? "If you get me out of this ticket, I'll never speed again." Sound familiar?

Pastor Brandon guides us through this profound chapter where God exposes our tendency toward temporary devotion—love that "vanishes like morning mist." With remarkable candor, he challenges us to examine how we sometimes treat Jesus as a spiritual credit card, swiping for forgiveness whenever convenient rather than pursuing genuine relationship. Through the continuing story of Hosea and Gomer, we see a powerful metaphor of God's persistent pursuit of His unfaithful people.

The heart of this message centers on God's declaration: "I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings." This revolutionary statement upends our transactional approach to faith. Drawing from personal ministry experience, Pastor Brandon shares why his church moved away from routine "sinner's prayers" toward more meaningful expressions of commitment, seeking to foster authentic relationship with Christ rather than religious performance.

What does it mean to stop cheapening the cross by using it merely as a "get-out-of-jail-free card"? How might our faith transform if we embraced the truth that we don't live so God will love us, but live freely because He already does? These questions invite us to move beyond shallow promises into deep covenant relationship with our Creator. Listen now and discover how God's unfailing grace calls us to faithful love rather than religious theater.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 (00:00):
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today.
Hosea, chapter six, and today'stitle is Shallow Promises
Versus Deep Promises ShallowPromises Versus Deep Promises.
There's another one of thosechapters where you better get
your popcorn, get extra butteron that stuff, get some salt,

(00:20):
because it's good.
This is where God is sayingokay, that's what those guys are
offering you, is what I'moffering you.
You're going to make a choiceand there's no choice at all.
I mean, I'm talking about he isfighting for his bride and I'm
here for us.
If you're ready, I'm going toopen up your Bible with me in
Hosea, chapter six.
Get everything ready to go.
While you're doing that, ifyou're new around here, make
sure you take a moment, likeshare, subscribe to the YouTube

(00:43):
channel and the podcast, makesure you leave us a five-star
review on the podcast it reallydoes help us get the word out
and make sure you're going tothe Bible Breakdown Discussion
on Facebook.
That's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job and
the more we dig, the more wefind.
Also, I want to tell you thatif you are part of our local
real life church I don't know ifyou know this, but I come up

(01:03):
with various different blogentries throughout the week and
I post them about.
I just got through doing one onleadership, but I've done one
before on how to thinkbiblically about spiritual
warfare, spiritual authority.
I have a weekly newsletter thatcomes out about the Bible
breakdown, and so if you'd liketo receive those, you can go to
the brandoncannoncom andsubscribe to the newsletter and
everything I publish.
You will get there, and it'sjust my way of trying to help us

(01:26):
think biblically about theworld around us.
So if you got that, you want todo that, we're going to jump
into God's Word together.
So if you've been with us overthe past few days, then you know
we've been walking through thebook of Hosea and I love the
fact that I guarantee youthere's a few of you who have
never read Hosea.
You kind of skipped over itbecause it was those minor

(01:46):
prophets, and now it's one ofyour favorite books of the Bible
.
You know it is because this issome juicy stuff, and so if you
haven't been with us, this isabout the reckless love of God
and in chapter one God went toHosea.
If you remember, he is aprophet in the northern kingdom.
Remember Israel?
Split in two.
You got Israel in the north,judah in the south.
He's in the northern kingdom,he's alive at the same time as

(02:07):
Isaiah and God tells Hosea Iwant you to go marry a
prostitute.
Say what, god, you heard me.
I want you to marry aprostitute.
Her name is Gomer, not GomerPyle Gomer, and you got some
kids.
We're going to make a life andshe's gonna cheat on you like a
lot, but you're gonna go findher over and over again.

(02:28):
And, man, do you rememberchapter five?
How?
Or, excuse me, after four, howbrutal.
That was where he had to go buyher back from her pimp.
He had to go buy her back offof some chopping block and and.
But he did, and over and overagain.
God is, that's just like whatI'm doing.
I'm the one who's having to gobuy you back over and over again
, and I'm here for it.

(02:48):
I love you.
I'm going to keep on fightingfor you over and over again.
And then he looks at hisdetractors and he's saying and
I'm coming for you fools.
I mean, these are the peoplethat are causing his quote
unquote bride to run away fromhim.
So he's like I'm after you.
I mean like let's do this.

(03:10):
Well, after he's done that,after he's been talking to them,
he looks at his bride.
He looks at this woman who'ssupposed to be faithful and she
keeps prostituting herself.
But instead of seeing her asused goods, as worthless, look
at what he says to her today.

(03:30):
This is just amazing.
This is just awesome.
All right, this is great.
You ready?
Here we go.
Hosea, chapter six, verse one,says this come, let us return to
the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces andnow he will heal us.
He has injured us.
Now he will bandage us ourwounds.
In just a short time he willrestore us so that we may live

(03:54):
in his presence.
Oh, that we might know the Lord.
Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surelyas the arrival of dawn or as
the coming of rains and springmorning.
Oh, israel and Judah, whatshould I do with you, asked the
Lord, for your love vanisheslike the morning mist and

(04:16):
disappears like dew in thesunlight.
I sent my prophets to cut youto pieces, to slaughter you with
my words, with judgment andinescapable as light.
I want to show you love, notoffer.
I want you to show love, notoffer sacrifices.
I want you to know me more thanI want burnt offerings, but,

(04:37):
like Adam, you broke my covenantand you betrayed my trust.
Gilead is the city of sinners.
Tracked with footprints ofblood, priests form bands of
robbers waiting in ambush fortheir victims.
They murder travelers along theroad to Shechem and practice
every kind of sin.
Yes, I have seen somethinghorrible in Ephraim and Israel

(05:00):
my people are defiled byprostituting themselves with
other gods.
Oh, judah, the harvest ofpunishment is also waiting for
you, though.
I wanted to restore thefortunes of my people.
In other words, god knows us, heknows when we're serious and he
knows when we're not.
And just like he has shown inthe other chapters about the

(05:21):
shallow promises that evilpeople make toward us, he's now,
in this chapter, talking aboutthe shallow promises that we
sometimes make to God, and youknow what we don't want to do.
We don't want to talk aboutthat.
You know what I'm saying.
Like we don't want to talkabout the fact that.
Can we just?
I mean like, so let's just gothere, right, let's just talk
about it for a second.

(05:42):
Nobody wants to talk about thefact that we lie to God on the
regular.
You know what I'm saying.
We lie to God on the daily.
Think about it.
How many times do we say howabout this one?
You get pulled over forspeeding.
God, if you get me out of thisticket, I am never going to
speed you the rest of my life.
You know you are speedingbefore the end of the day.

(06:04):
God, if you answer this prayerrequest, I'm not going to ask
you for anything else.
God, if you forgive me of thissin, I am never going to sin
again.
Going to ask you for anythingelse.
God, if you forgive me of thissin, I am never going to sin
again.
God, if you do this, god if youdo that, and how many times?
Okay, here's one we reallydon't want to talk about how
many times we go to church onSunday and we turn over a new
leaf for like an hour you knowwhat I'm saying when we do all

(06:26):
the things we raise our hand atthe right time, we pray the
right prayer, all this kind ofstuff and then we act like it's
all okay.
Can I tell you one of thereasons why and this is I know
this is so local and I'm tryingnot to be too local because I
know we've got people who listenand watch all over the world at
this point, but at our localchurch we used to do the whole
thing, like a lot of churches do, and that is, at the end of the
service we would explain whatsalvation is and, and we will

(06:49):
give people an opportunity topray the prayer of salvation.
Repeat after me.
All that good stuff, and Ithink that's beautiful.
I think that's wonderful.
But one of the things thatstarted to grieve my soul as I
started noticing that a lot ofpeople would fill out our
connect card and I know becausethey put their name down and
they would mark that they hadn'tgotten saved that day, I was

(07:10):
like, no, wait a minute, we keeprecords of this stuff.
You marked you got saved twoweeks ago and then eight weeks
ago and then 12 weeks ago, andwhat it was is they were turning
over a new leaf every week.
You know like, hey, listen, Isinned a whole lot, so let me
just get God's forgiveness.
God ain't ever gonna do thatagain, knowing good and well,
you're gonna do it.
You know what I mean and I'mnot putting shade on you.
We've all done this right, andso one of the reasons why we

(07:32):
stopped doing the sinner'sprayer as a corporate thing is
because I wanted it to meansomething.
I felt like that in, at least inour local church not with
everybody, of course, right, butwith some people it kind of
lost something.
And so what we do now is wetalk about what salvation is we
have the plan of salvation onthe back of our Connect card and

(07:54):
about what salvation is.
We have the plan of salvationon the back of our connect card
and we say we're going to haveone more song of worship and if
you would like to receivesalvation, do something.
You'll get out of your seat.
We have a table in the back ofour auditorium and say hey, I
want you to go meet with ourprayer team in the back.
I want you to tell them takethem this card.
I want to give my life to Jesusand they're going to pray with
you and they're going to beright there celebrating you as
you come into the kingdom of God.
It's a beautiful thing, and thereason why is because we wanted

(08:20):
to try to get rid of some ofthat turning over new leafs and
we wanted to see like we wantedto cost you something like come
to Jesus, let it be real, right.
And if we're not careful.
If we're not careful, then wecan pray to God only to get out
of trouble, not to get into arelationship.
And the thing is is that Jesusdid not die on the cross just to

(08:44):
be our get-out-of-jail-freecard.
Jesus died on the cross androse again to set us free from
sin and death so that we couldenter into his kingdom, have
fellowship with him, becomeheirs of the kingdom of God,
become a kingdom of priests andour God, children of God.
First, john says see how verymuch our father loves us,
because he calls us his children, because that is what we are.

(09:06):
We're no longer in the kingdomof darkness, we're the kingdom
of light.
That's what he came for.
So me, you, everybody around you, here's my challenge to us,
here's the application point.
Let us not cheapen the cross byusing it as a credit card
machine where we just swipeevery time we need forgiveness,
but instead see it for the glorythat it is, and it is our King

(09:32):
who came to rescue us and thento live accordingly.
Don't live so that God willlove us.
We live free because he lovesus.
So, no more shallow promises,but deep promises to the Lord.
Let's pray God.
Thank you so much for today.
Thank you, god, that you'rewith us and that you're for us
and that in all ways you walkwith us.
Lord, I pray that we will walkcloser to you every day, not

(09:55):
because we feel like we have to,but because we're overwhelmed
by the fact that we get to andthat we are so loved by you.
Thank you, god, for yourunfailing grace.
In Jesus' name, we pray, amen,amen.
What God's word says in Hosea 6, verse six.
We read it earlier today I wantyou to show love, not offer
sacrifices.
I want you to know me more thanI want burnt offerings, in

(10:24):
other words, no shallow promises.
I want relationship, man, theamazing, reckless love of God.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow for Hosea, chapter seven.