Trouble Brewing
Notes
Transcript
Life is unfair!
Life is unfair!
This is a hard truth everyone one of us faces, sometimes weekly and sometimes not as often. Right does not always win. The better team sometimes loses.
Why do evil people succeed?
Why do evil people succeed?
Ever wonder this? I struggle to use the word “evil” because it is so easy to see others as being awful, incompetent, less than, horrific and sinners than it is to admit I am capable of being the same.
Is God inactive?
Is God inactive?
As we open up Jeremiah 11 & 12 this to some extent is the question. What nature is God working in our world? How is God showing himself to others?
God is the creator of all things!
God is the creator of all things!
This is proclamed again in Jeremiah 10.16 and we need to see this truth. All things but God alone are created and thus subject to the creator.
But God made the earth by his power;
he founded the world by his wisdom
and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
This is proclaimed again in Jeremiah 10.16 and we need to see this truth.
The covenants of God are His gift of grace.
The covenants of God are His gift of grace.
The prophets saw themselves as coming from the line of Moses—to intercede for the people, confess their sins to God, and remind them of what the Lord asks.
There is always a response to God’s grace.
There is always a response to God’s grace.
Grace will illicit a response. We are never neutral. It may seem that way but it cannot be so.The Sinai Covenant was not a work based salvation as some would understand it but instead was how God said, “because I chose you this is how you should live in response to my grace.”
God is faithful and just.
God is faithful and just.
The answer to the question of evil succeeding is this truth. We do not know when but because God is faithful, because he is just, because he is righteous some time he will act.
But you, Lord Almighty, who judge righteously
and test the heart and mind,
let me see your vengeance on them,
for to you I have committed my cause.
Take your case/complaint to God!
Take your case/complaint to God!
This is the pattern of Jeremiah, David, and others. Jeremiah 12.1 reminds us that God’s righteousness means we can take these things to Him.
God’s response: persevere and be faithful!
God’s response: persevere and be faithful!
This is not what we want to hear; or at least I don’t want to.
God’s grace is powerful.
God’s grace is powerful.
The chapter ends with a word of hope. A word of prophecy towards the New Covenant we celebrate today in the Lord’s Supper.
