Jeremiah - Joy (2)

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Sermon Text

Sermon Text: Scripture

Call to Worship

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Passage:

Formation Journal Page Number: 5:53-6:33 7:05-7:41

Jeremiah 23:5–8 CSB

5 “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration— “when I will raise up a Righteous Branch for David. He will reign wisely as king and administer justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. This is the name he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness. 7 “Look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ 8 but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other countries where I had banished them.’ They will dwell once more in their own land.”

Opening Illustration:

High school - you get out and you are like - what was that all about? Why did I care so much? You are under a new administration!

Here’s the deal that’s the way it is with this life. We can get so caught up with the pressures of this world, that we forget that we are free.

Jesus’ birth allows us to graduate from the pressure to perform.

Joy comes from being free of having to measure up.

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Getting into the Sermon

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Everyone is looking for a form of Righteousness

Righteousness is conforming to a standard and each standard has it’s own commandments.

So in high school - the standard was being cool and it had commandments - Do you have friends, are you wearing the right clothes, do you have the right haircut, what kind of car do you have. There’s all these commandments for the standard of cool.

Now in this passage,

So let’s look at the history of this passage. History of the OT - placing it in history

Jeremiah 23:5–8 CSB

5 “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration— “when I will raise up a Righteous Branch for David. He will reign wisely as king and administer justice and righteousness in the land.

There was a good king - Josiah but he died and then had a series of bad kings who reigned for such short times that this prophecy could have taken place during any of them.

He is going to create a reign that is very different from the one that they were experiencing, because they were experiencing was bad.

The first king Jehoiakim, reigned the longest but he saw the first exiles taken.

Now, there was already the first group of people taken. Daniel, shadrach, meshak, and abendigo.

Then there was Jehoichin - second wave taken

and then zedekiah - who was the final king and the final wave.

So this was written either after the first wave or the second wave. The final wave was when Jerusalem was destroyed - so it had to be before that.

So here is what Jeremiah saw -

He saw people using God’s name to live by pagan morality and with pagan expectations of blessings.

So here is what that means - It means that they were being more shaped by their culture than by Christ.

So they had a substitue righteousness. The standard was was based on the Baal. Use the gods. SO they were trying to use Yhwh. That’s what they were doing. They were using him and so by the standard of their righteousness they were complete: to them the commandment was sacrifices. We make sacrifices we are good. It was Baal thinking. It was Pagan thinking.

The pressure they would feel They were balancing so many gods - it demanded a lot from them sacrifices, worship, even children. It was all inclusive.

So then, they would turn around and say, well - God is happy with me! I have nothing to worry about. Everything is cool!

Here is the great lie - remember there were three times people were taking into exile - so while the world was falling apart around them, the influences the false prophets were like - it’s fine. It’s good. The gods are happy.

They had forms of righteousness - given by the culture that were bankrupt.

Now, how about us. Do we have this problem? Too often when we think about false prophets we think about false bible teachers or false religions and all that is true. Those are bad.

But for most christians, that isn’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the cultural shaping of christians.

Our biggest problem is Christians using the name of Christ living by cultural morality and having cultural expectations of blessing. It’s being formed by the culture more than Christ. when we talk about the enemy - we talk about three things.

So we have false prophets in our day - who go around on line and in person and tell you how you should live. They tell the new forms of righteousness. The tell standard, they tell you the commandments. And they sound good. They influence us. They heap on pressure to perform and they crurh us.

And what happens when we do that, is that we buy into a form of righteousness that its own standard and its own commandments.

Let me give you some examples: We can have perfect- family righteousness. What is the standard for that? That you are married with some kids and everyone is doing really well. Everyone is happy and loving. There is nothing wrong with having a good family, it is a problem when we make that our righteousness. What about people who don’t get married? What about people whose kids are doing well? What happens when the marriage goes really bad.

When you live byPerfect-family righteousness, and you make that your standard, you start to become anxious and depressed because all families are going to have problems. You start to hide whats going on. You won’t talk to your friends or seek help because this is the righteousness you use to justify yourself.

We use God’s name to live by perfct-family rules and have perfect- family righteousness’ idea of blessing.

Or you can have financial success righteousness. It has a standard - have money. It has commandments - drive a nice car, wear nice clothes, take great vacations, look a certain way, behave a certain way. Have a big time job.

There is nothing wrong with financial success - it does become a problem when we make that our righteousness. Because then we use God’s name by living by the rules of financial success with the financial success’ version of blessing.

health and fitness righteousness - be healthy the standard - exercise, you gotta eat right carnivore diet even though steak is $100 , the supplements, gotta eat fresh food - no fast food. Its unrelenting.

Those are just some examples. It can be popularity, beauty, niceness, it can even be living counter-culturally. Whatever the case, the enemy uses the culture is working subtly to shape us and to mold us. To live by God’s name, but with the culture’s morality and culture’s measure of success.

We are juggling all of them

Chirstmas season - perfect family you gotta get the perfect gifts hope you have the money for it - there is only 17 shopping left before christmas your ready?

How many of us walk around with constant pressure, soul crushing pressure. Pressure that drives us to never rest, to never relax, to not be generous, to live under this pressure to try to measure up.

but just like the false prophets were lying then, saying everything’s good while people were being taken away into exile - it’s the same today- people how to parent the modern their kids aren’t thriving, their finances are lie, they are renting the care, you know, they fitness buffs online a lot of them use steriods. Its all a lie. the pressure is immense.

We are trying to live by the cultures standard- what the culture thinks is righteousness.

and it’s foolishness. It doesn’t pay. It doesn’t work.

And that brings bondage. In Jeremiah’s day - it was literal exile. In our day, it is more of a spiritual bondage.

Here’s the diagnostic question - how much pressure do you feel to live a certain way? You under pressure? Pressure to buy the right gifts at Christmas, pressure to have the nice car, pressure to make sure that nobody sees you for who you really are.

The pressure to measure up doesn’t come from God.

How do I know that?

Jeremiah 23:5–8 CSB

6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. This is the name he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness.

What does Jesus invite us into? A life of peace and justice. Look at the last line, the LORD is our righteousness.

Now I want you to notice something - the word LORD is in all caps. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and it is translated into English. There are several words that can be translated to the english word lord. Sometimes, its a title, like if you think of an english lord and lady. Sometimes it means Adonai which is god’s title for master.

When you see Lord in all caps it means Yhwh which is the proper name of God. Not a title. Right, you might call me pastor, that’s my title. You could call daniel Doctor, that’s his title. His name is Daniel. My name is actually Anthony but nobody really calls me that. So Yhwh is God’s name.

So here’s what this is saying - it is saying that the messiah, the one who is coming is actually going to be God and that God is going to be our righteousness.

Geneology

How does that work - the gospel - great exchange focus on righteousness.

So that’s exactly what happened. If that’s true, if that’s true for you , then you don’t get righteousness from other things. Righteousness is conformity to a standard.

You don’t have to continue to try to measure up - you can’t. You don’t have to feel the pressure to be perfect, you don’t need the pressure to have the perfect family, you don’t to have the pressure of trying to have all the money, have the right politics, solve the worlds problems, be the perfect person.

You don’t have to continue to strive for your own righteusouness.

If Christ was worthy, then you are worthy.

I got taller in florida - I remember, going on rides, some rides as disney at all the theme parks have a sign and its says you have to be this tall.

The lord is our righteousess. You conform to the standard because of Jesus.

So we can be saved. We can be secure.

The anxiety we felt in high school, was that there was a standard that we didn’t conform to. Nobody did. So you were always off. We weren’t secure.

When the culture tries to come and say - you don’t measure up - look you don’t have the perfect family, you don’t have the money, you don’t have the whatever - it doesn’t matter. You measure up because Christ is our righteousness.

when you see the baby - why did I even care about those people!

Christ allows us to graduate from the pressure to measure up - Your there - through Christ. So when the baby was born we get joy because we measure up.

You can have actual peace!

Jeremiah 23:5–8 CSB

7 “Look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ 8 but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other countries where I had banished them.’ They will dwell once more in their own land.”

I love this final part. Because up to this time, salvation from Egypt was the big thing in Israel’s history. Everyone looked back on that and said that was the sign of God’s faithfulness.

God's biggest work was saving us by giving us Christ's righteousness.

But now we have something bigger. Something more profound. if you have never given your life to Christ - today is the day. Do it!t

So here’s the deal, this holiday season, as you feel like you don’t conform to the standard, as you strive to conform, traquilo. Rest. It’s ok.

Money isn’t the standard. Family isn’t the standard. None of that is the standard. Christ allows us to conform to the standard.

This is why I love church - we don’t have pretend, we don’t lie, we don’t have to feel the pressure. We measure up. We’ve arrived. Because of what Christ has done. So let’s live in that joy of graduation together.

As a church, that’s what lets love people - we fight against the cultural urges to look down on people because they don’t measure up. We don’t do that. We measure up - because we have Christ’s righteousness, so let’s live that way togehter.

Lord’s Supper:

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

Benediction:

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.