If you love, it's gonna hurt. Let's talk about it on this edition of key life. You kind of get tired of doctrine without application, religion without reality, and cliches without truth. If so, you come to the right place. The place, key life, the teacher, Steve Brown. Thanks Mike. If you have your Bible open at the Hosea 11 as we go on through our Old Testament Survey, I think this week I'll finish up with Hosea, and by the way, don't forget tomorrow we're gonna take a break from the Old Testament Survey. We're gonna spend some time remembering and putting things in perspective. Almost a year and tomorrow it will be a year has passed since 9-11. I'll tell you something. I was in New York and I stood by that gaping hole. I spoke at Carnegie Hall. I walked around that fence with all of the teddy bears and the prayers and candles, and I was deeply moved. I couldn't think in, but I thought since then, and I've looked at what the scriptures had to say, and tomorrow, we're gonna pause in our regular study, and we're gonna talk about it. And incidentally, don't forget about the booklet that we're offering today and yesterday, and then we're gonna offer it tomorrow. And that's the last time I'm gonna mention it. As long as supplies last, we'll send them to you. And I'm gonna tell you at the end of the broadcast how you can get this booklet. It's never forget discovering hope in the aftermath of the tragedy. There are people in this book, Max Locato, Chuck Swindall, Ann Graham Lott's, Jack Aferd, Charles Stanley on right now, and you're gonna love it. And if you'll listen very carefully at the end of the broadcast, I'll give you some indication about how you can receive this book. Okay, back to Jose 11. As you know, we're looking at the different facets of God's love from Jose 11. We've looked at Love's instruction and Love's harshness. Now I want you to see Love's hurt. If you have your Bible, look at the eighth verse of that 11th chapter of Jose, and I gotta remember this is a poem. And in verses 5 through 7, there is this incredible wrath, this anger, the sword will whirl against your cities, and then the reality of what is the essence of God breaks through. But how can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Edmine, treat you like Zeboine, my heart recoils within me? My compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim, God and not man. The Holy One in your midst and I will not come in wrath. You want to know how to never hurt, how to never have your feelings devastated, to never feel just depressed about other people, to never feel emotions about it that are destructive and make you feel bad about it. Now listen up, I'm gonna tell you how to do that. In case your heart in concrete, don't care about anything, get into sin, and look at the world and say it doesn't matter whatever, and you will be an island, and nothing will ever touch you, and nothing will ever hurt you, and you'll never be devastated by other people, and you will die in that concrete. But let me tell you something, if you care about anything, it's gonna hurt you. If you're gonna reach out to anybody, you're gonna get hurt. If you decide to love, it will sometimes be devastating. I'm a father, and I love my daughters more than I can tell you, and I love my wife more than I can tell you, and I've got grandchildren that are a lot better than your grandchildren. And I love them, but let me take some. When I look back over the years, and I think of the times when the tears welled up in my eyes, from everything, from the confusion of my children, to teaching them to ride a bicycle. The hurt was sometimes really deep when they were hurt, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I don't like concrete, and I don't like concrete when it incases anybody's heart. If you're gonna love, it's gonna hurt. Now, I want to tell you something about God. If God loves us, it's gonna hurt deeply, too. If God loves us, and the Bible says that he doesn't just love, but is attribute, his essence is love. The Apostle John says that God is love. What does that say about hurt? And what does that say about the cross? I'll tell you something, the cross has a lot of things to us. It's the place where we're forgiven, where God loves us without conditions. It's the place where we never again have to feel guilty because our sin was born on the back of the Galilee and Carpenter who hung spread eagle on the town garbage heap between two thieves for us. He who though he was rich became poor, that by his poverty you might be rich. That's cool. I mean, that's good stuff. The cross makes it possible for us to live forever, too. We're not home yet, and tomorrow on the special broadcast about 9-11, I'm gonna say something about that. You're not home yet. Heaven is yet to come when there'll be no more tears, and the cross secured that for you. The cross lets us know, however, and this is very important that there is a cross at the very heart of God. The cross is the sign and the symbol of the reality of who God is. God is not unfeeling. He does not have a heart that is encased in concrete. God is not a child of user. God isn't looking down on you with a lightning bolt. Hardly waiting to throw it at you when you get out of line at the very heart of God. There is a cross, and so when we read about love, it's heard in Hosea 11, 8-9. We read about God's hurt because he loves. And then there's one of the facts that have God's love. I'm gonna give you before we finish with Hosea. You'll find it in the 14th verse of Hosea 11. Let me see, not the 14th verse. The 10th verse. They shall go after the Lord, and he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children shall come trembling from the West. They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, like does from the land of Syria, and he will return them to their homes, declares the Lord. Now, that is speaking of a particular people in a particular place, and many of us believe that in the late 40s, when Israel was founded as a nation that promise was fulfilled, but it's a part of a bigger plan for God that talks about the future. And the future is this, that if God loves you now, he will love you forever. Love doesn't stop when you die. Love doesn't stop when you do bad things. Love doesn't stop when you don't love back. Love is absolute, and it's eternal, and it never comes to an end. I think I've told you the story about my brother. I loved him a lot. He was a Democratic politician. You say, Steve, how could you have a Democrat in your family? They're all Democrats. I was the black sheep. I was the one that was a Republican, but I ran my brother's media campaign because I loved him, and then he died on me, and he died at the peak of his career. I honestly believe that he would be the governor of North Carolina had he lived, but he was in his early 40s, and he had a coronary as a result of diabetes, and he just died. Now, when you go through the loss of a loved one, it's hard, and I know that, but let me tell you why it was a little bit harder for me because I was the preacher in the family, the other son, the son who knew God, who was supposed to give comfort. So when I went back home at the death of my father, I arranged the funeral. I had to comfort my mother. I had to reach out to my nephews. I had to be strong, and I had to be caring, and I want you to know it was really hard. When they had my brother's funeral, the Marines gave that 21 gun salute because he had been a Marine. They shut down the streets of the city as the funeral possession went to the graveyard, and the police officer saluted my brother who was the district attorney. It was a tremendous loss. People were crying and weeping and mourning, but I couldn't do that because well, I was the preacher. I was the pastor, and I was the elder son, and I had to comfort a mother who had lost a son who thought her son would bury her before you bury him. So I was strong. You would have been proud of me. You would have been proud of the way I didn't cry and the way I didn't mourn, but I knew that someday I was going to have to do it. So a few weeks later, I was speaking somewhere in the north, and I got a connection coming back to my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina in the mountains, and I went from the airport to the graveyard, and I
went out to that graves an awful day. It was windy and it was raining, and they hadn't put up a tombstone at my brother's grave, and I couldn't find this grave. That's an awful time. I mean, I was standing there wet from the rain, depressed from all I'd gone through, the hiding of my own morning, and so I just started crying. And I said, Lord, this is an awful time. This is terrible. I'm here to mourn my brother, and I can't even find his grave. But you know what happened, Jesus came. And Jesus said, Son, why are you seeking the living among the dead? And I thought of the resurrection. And I thought about home, and I thought about God's love, and I want you to know when I did, it was a whole lot better. Love's future. You think about that? I'm in.
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