Untitled Sermon (37)

Jeremiah 42

How many of you are preachers? None of what I have to say tonight has anything to do with you. We pastors just don’t have these kind of struggles so you can all just sit back and look smug.

I have to take a couple of minutes to set up the point that I think the Lord wants me to make so bear with a little Biblical history. We all remember how the Kingdom of Israel split and became the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. If you don’t remember you can find it in the Kings and the Chronicles. Israel never really followed God and always had bad kings and God always sent strong prophets like Elijah and Elisha. But they never repented and they went into captivity to the Assyrians and we never really hear from the 10 northern tribes of Israel again in history. But the Southern Kingdom had a few good kings and some very good prophets and they kept on rocking along for a while. Finally they began worshiping all the foreign gods of the people around them God showed His perfect patience but finally it ran out. God does have perfect patience but His patience does have its limits. HE always warns and calls to repentance but finally there is an in to His patience and I know that is true because of what we read in 2 Chronicles 36:15-16 15And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. 16But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy. There was no more remedy. Let me make this part short. Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar named Gedalia as governor but the Jews left in Jerusalem killed him and a fellow by the name of Johanan took over and they decided to all pack up and head to Egypt. The prophet Jeremiah was still in the city so they go to him and ask him to go to God for them and ask Him what He would have them do. They said this to Jeremiah: Jeremiah 42:5-6 5So they said to Jeremiah, “Let the Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not do according to everything which the Lord your God sends us by you. 6Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.” “Whether we like it or not we are going to do whatever God tells us to do. All we want is to know, then we will do it.” (Like I said pastors none of this applies to you). I will tell you that I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard something like that (not that I have ever said anything like that). Jeremiah agrees to go to the Lord and ask and 10 days later he comes back to them and tells them what God said. I’m not going to read it all to you but God’s answer is summed up in verse 19 19“The Lord has said concerning you, O remnant of Judah, ‘Do not go to Egypt!’ Know certainly that I have admonished you this day. … People of Judah: “We will do anything You say Lord, just let us know.” God; “Don’t go to Egypt.” I didn’t hear God stutter so they knew without a doubt what God wanted. In fact later in the passage God tells them through Jeremiah that they would all die if they went to Egypt.

These people knew their history and what God had done with the Northern Kingdom. They had heard all the calls to repentance to their kingdom and Jerusalem and what God had done with them. So what do you think they did in response to God’s message of “don’t go to Egypt”? , They accused Jeremiah of lying to them and they even kidnapped him and took him with them to Egypt. That is the end of the story you can read for yourselves what happened in Egypt. But something really stood out to me when I was studying this passage. When the people said they wanted to do whatever it was that God wanted them to do what they really meant was; “We want to be obedient to God as long as what He wants is what we want.” These people who had seen God do what HE said He would do still didn’t get it. They wanted what they wanted and it made no real difference to them what God’s will was. In fact in verse 20 Jeremiah calls them hypocrites for sending him to ask of God what His will was.

But let’s be honest. How many of us do the same thing on a regular basis? “I just want to grow in the Lord and be His servant (as long as I don’t have to commit to reading the Bible everyday).” “I just want to be His witness to the world (as long as I don’t have to talk to anyone different than me, or like me).” “Lord I’ll go wherever You send me (as long as I don’t have to get to far away from my kids, or grandkids, or family in general, or people I know).” “Lord, I’ll go into all the world (as long as it isn’t a dangerous place).” “Lord you have blessed me with so much I just want to give to people in need (as long as they are working people and it doesn’t change my lifestyle).” I could go on with this but I think you get the idea; sometimes our commitment to God is hypocritical. Not always, nothing is always, but sometimes we mistake our will for God’s will and think nothing else can be true. “God can’t really want me to do that”…whatever that is. I’ll do anything You want, as long as it is what I want.

The truth is God changes our “want” but we must be obedient of His “want”. We are called, as followers of Jesus, to seek His will over our own. Romans 12:2 Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may know what is the good and excellent aand perfect will of God. If He is our Lord then we are to surrender our will to His will. Paul said it this way in Galatians 2:20 20I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Here is the problem with all of that, you ready? It is hard, it is always difficult to lay aside what you want for what someone else wants and just because it is Jesus doesn’t make it any easier. However we know that His will is always best. His will grows us into mature believers. His will leads to life and not death. The people of Judah knew the truth but they wanted what they wanted. How about you? Let’s pray.