God Responds to His People

Jeremiah: God's Response in a Tumultuous Time  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  31:07
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Introduction

We are continuing in our looking into Jeremiah. I hope for many of you that you had the chance to listen to last weeks coverage of the call of Jeremiah.
To be honest, being called to a people who are not listening to God is quite the dangerous calling.
As stated last week, Jeremiah’s thoughts at first were not to “I’m All In, God!”
In fact they were quite the opposite.
Have you ever taken a job and then as you began to work at he company it wasn’t what you were told or expected?
I remember one job that I had worked at for several years and God called me to another ministry.
During the “farewell Lunch” they had invited the young employee that was going to be promoted to take over my role in the company.
You see this was a company owned and operated by a believer and most of the main staff were believers so why not ask the guy who was coming up in the company to say farewell.
Job Expectations: They can lead you astray and this was the case of this young fellow following in my footsteps.
I clearly remember him saying to me at lunch. You know, I’ve been watching and I believe I can do your job in half the time it took you to do the job.
Job expectations:
I was leaving the job, the company, yet as some of the church people worked with me, I had to be civil.
I clearly remember him saying that to me
At that moment, I wanted to be honest, tell him a few things, tell him about the good and bad points of the job. Expectations and requirements of the job.
I wanted to point out his errors and misconceptions, but I thought I would hold back in case it got messy.
You what I mean, every job has its parts that you endure.
Here is what I simply said to him.
So, what I understand is that you are not doing the computer programming and network maintenance part of the job that I did, right.
To which he quickly replied, that’s right. I don’t know that stuff.
Well then, that was half my job.
The conversation stopped right there.
As we look into this morning’s text, you will notice that is not where Jeremiah stopped when he was confronted with giving God’s Word and direction to the people.
If Jeremiah was giving this message in Chapter Two to the people over the airwaves today. He would most likely have to include this in the subtitles.
You know, the subtitles that run across the bottom of the screen.
“Warning, what you are about to hear is offensive to some people”
It’s offensive only to those who will not listen to the message of God.
Who have determined in their mind what is right and refuse to listen to God.
With all this in mind, let’s go to God in prayer as we begin to look into His Word
PRAY
As we are now starting to gather in person, may I encourage you to bring your Bible. To have access to your own Bible.
As we work our way through the story of Jeremiah, we in most cases will be staying with the same passage, and it may be good for you to have your word opened.
Turn with me if you would to Jeremiah Chapter 2 and I will begin reading from the beginning of the chapter.
Jeremiah 2:1–3 ESV
1 The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. 3 Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt; disaster came upon them, declares the Lord.”

Go and Proclaim

Imagine this.
Jeremiah a newly appointed preacher. Fresh out of Seminary, with the training of, well quite frankly, none.
He wasn’t trained in the art of homelitics.
He wasn’t coming off of a preaching circuit and tour of bringing words of hope and healing to the people.
He hadn’t written a single book on the subject that could be titled this way:
Following God: The all knowing testament for the modern day Israelite.
This first sermon, let me say this again, His first sermon.
Fresh of the boat of being called by God to be the mouthpiece of God,
and this is his sermon.
Someone said,

It has been said that the word of God must do two things. It must “afflict the comfortable” and it must “comfort the afflicted.” Having been called and commissioned in such stirring terms, and having been given the visions of coming political events, the prophet Jeremiah was instructed to make his first foray into Jerusalem. His sermon was designed to “root out and to pull down” before he could ever “build and plant” (1:10).

The command was simple,
The Sermon was simple.
Go into the head office of the people, Jerusalem, and tell them this.
God said, “Go and tell them my words”
He begins by starting with this

There was a time

I wonder how many of us take the time to look back over our lives.
Do you remember the time that you first came into a saving knowledge of Christ.
For some of us, it was a gradual understanding of God’s Word and Gospel as we were raised in the church.
We heard the stories, believed the stories and then came into an understanding of God’s Salvation for our lives.
There are some of you who have a completely different journey.
God came along and grabbed you from where you were bound by slavery to sin and had a transformational, life changing experience with God and your testimony points to a time of life changing.
There was a time
Do we say that about our selves.
Do we hold to this as well.
There was a time where I was really on fire for God.
There was a time where I couldn’t stop reading God’s Word because it was the first time I had read such a wonderful story.
There was a time.
If this is where you are today, that you are looking back to a time that seems more desirable than where you are today, you need to ask yourself the question. What has changed.

What they were like

In order to see truth in your life, to evaluate what is happening, you need to compare .
When you begin a course to lose weight, you weigh yourself. It’s a benchmark.
I have heard of a professor who at the beginning of his class would give the students the final exam.
Frustrated, they would see how much they do not know and by the end of the course, they realized how far they had come or what they have learned.
For some of you, you began writing the heights of your children on the door frame and you watched as they grew.
All of these illustrations were designed to see growth, the positive.
Encouraging.
BUT
God, through the voice and means of Jeremiah wasn’t about to bring a positive report.
In fact, for the people in Jerusalem, it was a job review that you were not expecting.
A performance review. What you were like at the start and things don’t seem to be like they were.
It reminds me of a story of my father. When he was younger, he got a job painting the lines on the highway. Now we have machinery, but back in his early years, in Northern Ontario they hired people to paint.
The first day, Dad, painted twenty miles.
Tuesday came and he was a bit tired and only got in 18 miles
Wednesday the boss noticed that 15 miles were completed.
By Friday, he was down to ten miles.
The boss called him in to have a chat at this young worker.
It was not the type of chat you want to have with your boss.
Why the decline? was the question.
Dad’s response.
I kept getting farther and farther away from the paint can.
Well if you figured out, it’s not a true story. In fact my father was the complete opposite He figured out in most things how to do it faster.
But this was not the case for the people of God. They were farther and farther away from their love with God.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 6: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel (a. Israel’s Ingratitude (2:1–8))
In order to show the nation how far the people had departed from the Lord, Jeremiah reminds them of the time of their deliverance from Egypt. Like a devoted bridegroom, the Lord informs them he still remembers their love as his true bride (v.2).

The Honeymoon stage

God takes them back to a time that their total reliance was upon Him.
In college, in our second and continuing years in college and beyond, we began to call September as a Cow Eyed event.
Freshmen, the title given to those new to the school, would walk around with Cow eyes after members of the opposite sex as a possible date.
You see, many came from a place where the only other potential was your cousin and now you are walking around with so many believers to choose.
Many began relationships, which through the cow eye stage and onto marriage and began wonderful years together.
Heather and I are a testament to those days,
Folks, the honeymoon stage only lasts so long.
Without a commitment on both parties, things will and can go south quickly.
When God referred the people to those day, He was describing the people in a relationship with a degree of reciprocation to God’s abiding love and protection for them. It waned.
They did all that was asked of them. Sure there may have been some grumbling, but for the most part, God was the center of their lives.
Yet once again, we discover that awful word,
BUT

Their Faithfulness did not last

Their faithfulness did not last.
Look at the words Jeremiah continued to speak.
Jeremiah 2:4–8 ESV
4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. 5 Thus says the Lord: “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless? 6 They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through, where no man dwells?’ 7 And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. 8 The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who handle the law did not know me; the shepherds transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit.
Their Faithfulness did not last
Look at verse 5
God asks a question.
What would be more attractive then ME?
When God refers back to a time way before the time of the audience, is God passing the blame. Should the people blame others for their current situation?
By no means,
God is pointing back to a time, of which all people would have remembered, a time where God’s riches were evident.
It’s been said that,

Instead of this bounty, Judah chose emptiness, vanity, and futility.

God even defines that they sought after worthless things and they selves became worthless.
Was God stating that during this time the people had lost their value,
The NIV has translated that they became worthless themselves, The ESV says worthless, the NASB, to be honest has the better english translation in this verse. They said empty.
The Hebrew is describing becoming Vain and Conceded.
It’s that a warning in of itself.
When we seek after things that are worthless to God, we can become Vain and Conceded.
God will not and chooses not to use those types of people.
Look at verse 6 once again
Jeremiah 2:6 ESV
6 They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through, where no man dwells?’
When I was going over this passage my first thought was misguided.
I looked at the phrase,
They did not say, Where is God?
I took that as the people where asking Why did God leave?
Where did he Go
I don’t feel his presence.
I read assuming that it was stating of those times in our lives when we are feeling God’s distance from our lives.
Those time in which we feel like we ourselves are walking through a parched and desert land in our relationship with God.
But this statement points us in a different direction.
God was telling the people they failed in remembering the things God had done in their lives.
They failed in remembering the many acts of God that brought them to this land of plenty.
If any of you have run in a relay race and watch the finish.
Can you imagine if the anchor of the race, the one who crosses over the finish line, ran up to the judge, grabbed the trophy and went home by him or herself proclaiming the race he or she run.
It is quite the opposite.
The runner who crosses the finish line, looks for the team. Waits for the team, celebrates with the team.
God was asking the people, why I wasn’t included in the finish line celebrations.
Do we do that in our lives?
Do we give
sing to God be the glory for the great things he has done in our lives today.
Do we spend some time looking back over the many years of God’s faithfulness in our lives and have a celebration.
A celebration of praise and honor to Him or do we turn to the idols of this world and all its trappings.
How are we characterized?
How are you characterized?
God even mentioned the Priests, the ones responsible to carry and teach the Law, were silent.
They turned away from the teaching of the law and grabbed a hold of the teachings of the people around them.
This is a constant reminder for me that modern philosophies that are so easy to grasp, if there foundation is not in God’s Word, it will fail.
so what doe God do?
He puts the people on trial
Jeremiah 2:9–12 ESV
9 “Therefore I still contend with you, declares the Lord, and with your children’s children I will contend. 10 For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see, or send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has been such a thing. 11 Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. 12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord,

The Trial of the People

I will contend with you.
Yaweh says to the people,
You have God with you, for you, in your life, in your land, in your tribe and you turn away.
Look at your neigbours. They have worthless and insignificant things and yet they do not turn from that little, but you have turned away from me.
They have exchanged the Glory, the glory of God almighty that walked with them to things man made.
Simple put, God says there is no hope in these things.

The Charge against the people

God brings the people to court and now in this description begins to explain the charges against them

There are two sins against God

Jeremiah 2:13 ESV
13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
God now uses the metaphor of water and its source as a description for life.
First Sin: Forsaking God
They refused to accept or even acknowledge God’s work in their lives.
Folks this is not a matter of forgetting about God,
It’s not a matter of forgetting to bring praise and honor to Him and Him alone.
forsaking is an action of leaving something behind.
And not just leaving something behind as a wallet on a table.
Tent pegs at the campsite when you leave.
It is an intentional leaving and considering it worthless.
Can you imagine going to a car lot and buying the brand new tesla car, driving it to the coffee shop and walking away with the keys left in the car and a signed copy of the registration.
Finishing your last payment on your house’s mortgage then walking away from your house to live in a tent pitched in the floodlands by the river.
Written this way,
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 6: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel (b. Israel’s Idolatry (2:9–19))
Like a lawyer, Jeremiah summarizes his charges: Judah’s sin was compounded by rejection of truth and reception of error. The pagan nations had committed the one sin of idolatry, often exchanging one superstition for another. But Judah had exceeded them in disobedience in renouncing her own real God to serve nobodies. Jeremiah’s figures are singularly vivid and apt. His nation’s God is called the “spring of living water,” the source of life (cf. Ps 36:9)—a metaphor often used in Scripture of God, salvation, and Christ (cf. Isa 12:3; 55:1; John 4:10–14; 7:37–39). Water was a rare luxury in Palestine, and water from perennial sources was cherished. On the other hand, cisterns, though needed and used because of seasons of insufficient supply, could only store rain water. The thousands of them uncovered in archaeological digs attest their importance. At best, cisterns often yielded stagnant water; at worst, they cracked and allowed the water to seep out. Dead gods cannot impart life.
The second sin was what they had replaced God within their lives.
Utterly nothing. Nothing of Value.
Remember the story of women at the well.
Once again we see the metaphor of Living water
John 4 (ESV)
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The people have left something that was endless, supply less for something that we know will fade away.
This was not a great summation for the people.
It is not the final point of Jeremiah’s first proclamation or sermon to the people. He is only getting started.
May I challenge you this week, spend some time reading the description of what the people of God did that would bring these charges against them.
Pay close attention to verse 35 in Chapter 2
it is a description of Pride at the highest level

Conclusion

This morning we will conclude and stop there as a bit of a cliff hanger.
As the worship team comes forward to lead us in a song of response, let me leave you with this.
Do we spend time doing the following two things that the people of God missed.
Do we look back at what God has done for us in our lives and give him the praise, Glory, and honor
Are we purging ourselves of the things in our lives that are not brought from springs of living water.
This week, Remember the God of your youth, live in that moment and drink from the Springs of Living water.

Response to Worship

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