Rejecting a Gift

Jeremiah 2 “The Lord’s message came to me, “Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem: ‘This is what the Lord says: “I have fond memories of you, how devoted you were to me in your early years. I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted. Israel was set apart to the Lord; they were like the firstfruits of a harvest to him. All who tried to devour them were punished; disaster came upon them,” says the Lord.’ ” Now listen to the Lord’s message, you descendants of Jacob, all you family groups from the nation of Israel. This is what the Lord says: “What fault could your ancestors have possibly found in me that they strayed so far from me? They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of desert and deep…”

Exordium.

Bad Habit: When someone offers us a gift, we refuse it

Reasons why: Cultural pressure, We don’t want to be in debt to anyone, We don’t think we deserve it, We don’t realize how important the gift is.

I think we should quit doing that.

One place we should absolutely quit doing that is when it comes to the blessings that God offers us, and the gift that he is trying to give us.

That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Narratio

We’re going to be studying Jeremiah, chapters 2-6. It’s a big chunk of text, we won’t have time to hit every single verse, but I want us to get the Big idea in our minds.

Before we do that, I want to orient ourselves a little bit.

At the time that Jeremiah is preaching this message, it’s about 625 BC, 625 Years before Christ.

Israel and Judah are in what is called the “divided kingdom”

Under Saul, David, and Solomon, Israel was one nation. After Solomon there was a big Split, and the northern tribes—what we would call israel—were separated from the southern tribe of Judah.

At this point in history the northern kingdom of Israel has already been seized, hauled off into captivity by the Assyrians.

This is all happening During the reign of King Josiah in jerusalem, but before they made their major reforms.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how, when Josiah was king they found the book of hte law, and started working on turning the ship around.

All of what we’re going to read here is during josiah’s reign, but Right before Josiah starts to try and turn the ship around.

Jeremiah, if you remember from last week, has been called by god to preach a message to the kingdom of Judah, warning them of the judgement that is about to happen to them .

That’s the setting of the stage with what we’re about to read in chapters 2-6

Partitio

The big idea that I want you to understand here, is that Jeremiah 2-6 is a cautionary tale about Replacing God in our lives, rejecting the Free- Gift of God’s deliverance, choosing the road that leads away from God.

Confirmatio

If you have your Bible’s I’d love you to turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 2

As we talked about last week, Jeremiah has been set apart by god to proclaim Judgement on Judah.

And he is NOT excited about it.

And one of the things that I find fascinating about Jeremiah’s message, is that he’s clearly not excited about it. He’s clearly not a big fan of being called by God to deliver such bad news.

And we’ll see plenty of places throughout the book where Jeremiah is basically pleading with God, please don’t make me do this. Please don’t bring this destruction.

And we would think that his message would suffer because of that.

I know when I get to a hard passage in scripture, I struggle with it.

Jonah was asked to deliver a message to the ninevites that he didn’t want to give. And what did he do? he ran away to tarshish. And then when God finally got him back to ninevah, he gave one of the lamest sermons ever.

He walked about a third of the way into the city and said “in 40 days ninevah will be overthrown” and then left.

That was it.

And so we might expect, here in Jeremiah that we would get something similar.

And we would be so wrong.

Jeremiah, takes that responsibility that God has given him, and he just lets the people of Judah have it .

Jeremiah 2:4–8 NET 2nd ed.

Now listen to the Lord’s message, you descendants of Jacob, all you family groups from the nation of Israel. This is what the Lord says: “What fault could your ancestors have possibly found in me that they strayed so far from me? They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of desert and deep darkness, through a land in which no one travels, and where no one lives?’ I brought you into a fertile land so you could enjoy its fruits and its rich bounty. But when you entered my land, you defiled it; you made the land I call my own loathsome to me. Your priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those responsible for teaching my law did not really know me. Your rulers rebelled against me. Your prophets prophesied in the name of the god Baal. They all worshiped idols that could not help them.

He basically tells them, look, you guys have been rotten from the start, so much taht your ancestors were rotten.

god says, look, I delivered you out of egypt, brought you into a frtile land, I gave you the law, and how did you repay me? You defiled the land, you forgot the God who saved you, your preists worshipped idols.

Jeremiah 2:9-13

Jeremiah 2:9–13 NET 2nd ed.

“So, once more I will state my case against you,” says the Lord. “I will also state it against your children and grandchildren. Go west across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus and see. Send someone east to Kedar and have them look carefully. See if such a thing as this has ever happened: Has a nation ever changed its gods (even though they are not really gods at all)? But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, for a god that cannot help them at all! Be amazed at this, O heavens! Be shocked and utterly dumbfounded,” says the Lord. “Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot even hold water.

The cautionary tale here, is that when we replace God in our lives with anything else, the result is never going to be life-giving.

He says it’s like replacing a fountain of life giving water with a cracked cistern that can’t even hold water.

My wife bought a kitchen utensil. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s about the size of a potato masher But on the end of it, it makes an X shape. And it’s for breaking up ground beef.

I’ll be honest, I don’t always remember to pull the hamburger out of the freezer in time to let it thaw.

And if you thaw it in the microwave for too long the outsides start getting brown, and I don’t like that.

And so I end up with a pound of ground beef that’s still a bit frozen in the center.

(continue example of refusing to use hamburger thing)

—-

Rejecting God, and building cisterns looks like a lot of different things.

Sometimes it looks like refusing to rely on God in our finances. Or in politics. Or in our careers.

For the nation of Judah it looked like making political alliances.

Jeremiah 2:17–19 NET 2nd ed.

You have brought all this on yourself, Israel, by deserting the Lord your God when he was leading you along the right path. What good will it do you then to go down to Egypt to seek help from the Egyptians? What good will it do you to go over to Assyria to seek help from the Assyrians? Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment. Your unfaithful acts will bring down discipline on you. Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful it was for you to reject me, the Lord your God, to show no respect for me,” says the Lord God who rules over all.

—

I told you before, Jeremiah’s message was harsh, despite the fact that he was hesitant about this ministry.

And so far, nothing he’s had to say has been too harsh, too controversial.

I mean, OK, this seems like standard prophet stuff, don’t make idols, don’t make foriegn alliances.

That’s not that harsh of a sermon.

To which I would respond, Jeremiah’s just getting warmed up.

Jeremiah 2:20 NET 2nd ed.

“Indeed, long ago you threw off my authority and refused to be subject to me. You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill and under every green tree, like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers.

We’re firing some shots across the bow now. This is getting personal.

When I read through Jeremiah chapters 2 and 3, the first thing that came into my mind was,

If I said that from the pulpit it would be my last time preaching ever.

Jeremiah 2:23-27

Jeremiah 2:23 NET 2nd ed.

“How can you say, ‘I have not made myself unclean. I have not paid allegiance to the gods called Baal.’ Just look at the way you have behaved in the Valley of Hinnom! Think about the things you have done there! You are like a flighty, young female camel that rushes here and there, crisscrossing its path.

the Valley of hinnom, by the way, was the place where the idols baal and molech were worshipped through child sacrifice.

Jeremiah 2:24 NET 2nd ed.

You are like a wild female donkey brought up in the wilderness. In her lust she sniffs the wind to get the scent of a male. No one can hold her back when she is in heat. None of the males need wear themselves out chasing after her. At mating time she is easy to find.

Jeremiah 2:25–27 NET 2nd ed.

Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out and your throats become dry. But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me because I love those foreign gods and want to pursue them!’ Just as a thief has to suffer dishonor when he is caught, so the people of Israel will suffer dishonor for what they have done. So will their kings and officials, their priests and their prophets. They say to a wooden idol, ‘You are my father.’ They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

God is using some very...we’ll just call it “colorful” langauge here, to describe the sins of the people of Judah.

And the reason God does this, and the reason he uses this harsh language with his people, is because he’s trying to get them to open their eyes, and realize the damage that they are doing to their relationship with Him.

Jeremiah 3:1-5

Jeremiah 3:1–5 NET 2nd ed.

“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife, he may not take her back again. Doing that would utterly defile the land. But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. So what makes you think you can return to me?” says the Lord. “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. Where have you not been ravished? You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the wilderness. You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. That is why the rains have been withheld and the spring rains have not come. Yet in spite of this you are obstinate as a prostitute. You refuse to be ashamed of what you have done. Even now you say to me, ‘You are my father! You have been my faithful companion ever since I was young. You will not always be angry with me, will you? You will not be mad at me forever, will you?’ That is what you say, but you continually do all the evil that you can.”

When we replace God in our lives with anything else, We are choosing to damage that relationship. And it hurts.

It Hurts God’s heart to see his people act this way toward him.

And we need to understand that the behaviors of the people in Judah and israel is meant to be a mirror.

The Old testament and the sins of israel is a mirror that we hold up to ourselves. Because each and every one of us is guilty of this kind of behavior at one point or another in our lives.

Paul says in romans

Romans 3:23 NET 2nd ed.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And God doesn’t tell us this to make us feel bad about ourselves.

He doesn’t tell judah this so that they can walk around feeling sorry for themselve,s so that they can mope and pout about how terrible they are.

Jeremiah 3:12-4:2

Jeremiah 3:12–4:2 NET 2nd ed.

“Go and shout this message to my people in the countries in the north: Tell them, ‘Come back to me, wayward Israel,’ says the Lord. ‘I will not continue to look on you with displeasure. For I am merciful,’ says the Lord. ‘I will not be angry with you forever. However, you must confess that you have done wrong and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God. You must confess that you have given yourself to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed my commands,’ says the Lord. “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. If you do, I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion. I will give you leaders who will be faithful to me. They will lead you with knowledge and insight. In those days, your population will greatly increase in the land. At that time,” says the Lord, “people will no longer talk about having the ark that contains the Lord’s covenant with us. They will not call it to mind, remember it, or miss it. No, that will not be done anymore! At that time the city of Jerusalem will be called the Lord’s throne. All nations will gather there in Jerusalem to honor the Lord’s name. They will no longer follow the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. At that time the nation of Judah and the nation of Israel will be reunited. Together they will come back from a land in the north to the land that I gave to your ancestors as a permanent possession.” “I thought to myself, ‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! What a joy it would be for me to give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ and would never cease being loyal to me. But, you have been unfaithful to me, nation of Israel, like an unfaithful wife who has left her husband,” says the Lord. “A noise is heard on the hilltops. It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods. Indeed they have followed sinful ways; they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. Say, ‘Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God. We know our noisy worship of false gods on the hills and mountains did not help us. We know that the Lord our God is the only one who can deliver Israel. From earliest times our worship of that shameful god, Baal, has taken away all that our ancestors worked for. It has taken away our flocks and our herds and even our sons and daughters. Let us acknowledge our shame. Let us bear the disgrace that we deserve. For we have sinned against the Lord our God, both we and our ancestors. From earliest times to this very day we have not obeyed the Lord our God.’ “If you, Israel, want to come back,” says the Lord, “if you want to come back to me you must get those disgusting idols out of my sight and must no longer go astray. You must be truthful, honest and upright when you take an oath saying, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’ If you do, the nations will pray to be as blessed by him as you are and will make him the object of their boasting.”

Just come back home. That’s all God wants.

He just wants us to turn our hearts back toward him. To admit that the way we’ve been living hasn’t been working out so well for us.

He just wants to give us the gift of forgiveness.

And yet we reject it. We say, “I don’t need that gift, I don’t deserve that gift, I think I might just try and earn the gift”

No matter how you slice it, God is desperately trying to give us grace and mercy. and we refuse it.

Judah refused it.

And I wish, I wish, we could read this and then be like, “yep, then Judah turned toward god and they all lived happily ever after.

I wish that were what happened.

That would make for a really positive encouraging sermon today.

Like the story of the prodigal son, who threw his life away, and ran off with his Dad’s inheriteance, but then he had a change of heart, and he came back and he apologized, and his father welcomed him in with open arms. and they lived happily ever after.

I wish that’s what happened here but it’s not.

Jeremiah sees the writing on the wall.

God tells the people, look, turn back, accept the free gift of my salvation, and it will be glorious for you, but if you don’t babylon’s coming. They’re going to destroy jerusalem, brick by brick.

Jeremiah 4:19-22

Jeremiah 4:19–22 NET 2nd ed.

I said, “Oh, the feeling in the pit of my stomach! I writhe in anguish. Oh, the pain in my heart! My heart pounds within me. I cannot keep silent. For I hear the sound of the trumpet; the sound of the battle cry pierces my soul! I see one destruction after another taking place, so that the whole land lies in ruins. I see our tents suddenly destroyed, their curtains torn down in a mere instant. “How long must I see the enemy’s battle flags and hear the military signals of their bugles?” The Lord answered, “This will happen because my people are foolish. They do not know me. They are like children who have no sense. They have no understanding. They are skilled at doing evil. They do not know how to do good.”

Jeremiah 5:1-5

Jeremiah 5:1–5 NET 2nd ed.

The Lord said, “Go up and down through the streets of Jerusalem. Look around and see for yourselves. Search through its public squares. See if any of you can find a single person who deals honestly and tries to be truthful. If you can, then I will not punish this city. These people make promises in the name of the Lord. But the fact is, what they swear to is really a lie.” Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. They refuse to change their ways. I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. They do not know what their God requires of them. I will go to the leaders and speak with them. Surely they know what the Lord demands. Surely they know what their God requires of them.” Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority and refuse to submit to him.

The problem here was that the entire nation had rejected the life that God freely gave them, and replaced it with something that brings death.

And all they had to do was to turn their hearts back to God.

But jeremiah went all through the city, the rich and the poor, the average people, the prophets, the priests, the leaders,

Every single one of them rejected god

All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.

Jeremiah 6:16 NET 2nd ed.

The Lord said to his people: “You are standing at the crossroads. So consider your path. Ask where the old, reliable paths are. Ask where the path is that leads to blessing and follow it. If you do, you will find rest for your souls.” But they said, “We will not follow it!”

Peroratio

I think a lot of times we try to make faith more difficult than it really has to be.

Maybe some of that’s my fault.

Because obedience is so important, so we do bible studys and we preach sermons about how to live a better christian life, how to be more obedient to God.

And all of that’s important.

But the core of the Gospel message stays the same

All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God

All of us at one point or another have rejected God and dug a cracked cistern.

And God is offering us forgiveness. He’s offering us deliverance. He’s offering us the most beautiful gift you could ever imagine.

And we stand at a cross roads. Ask where the old reliable paths are.

Follow God.

When he offers us a free gift of grace, we don’t need to try and earn it, we don’t need to try and pay it off. We definitely shouldn’t reject it. Try to tell God, no no no, I don’t need your grace thank you very much.

You know what we should do, when someone offers us a gift, when God tries to give us the gift of salvation.

We should take it and say thank you.

And if we do, we will find rest for our souls.