Jeremiah 2020

Well, if you have a bible near you, please take it up and turn to the book of Jeremiah, and we're going to read chapter 1. So it's versus 1 to 19. Let's hear what God's saying to us. The words of Jeremiah, son of Hillkaya, 1 of the priests of Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The word of the lord came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, son of Amon, King of Judah, and through the reign of Jehovahohoyakim, son of Josiah, King of Judah, down to the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, son of Josiah, King of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.

The word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart, I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Alas sovereign lord, I said, I do not know how to speak. I am too young. But the Lord said to me, do not say I am too young, you must go to everyone I send you to and say, whatever I command you, Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you declares the Lord.

Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, I have put my words in your mouth. See today, I point you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down. To destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. The word of the lord came to me. What do you see Jeremiah?

I see the branch of an almond tree, I replied. The Lord said to me, you have seen correctly for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled. The word of the Lord came to me again. What do you see? I see a pot that is boiling, I answered.

It is tilting towards us from the north. The Lord said to me, from the north, disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land. I am about to summon all the peoples of the northern kingdoms declares the Lord. Their kings will come and set up their thrones, in the entrances of the gates of Jerusalem. They will come against all her surrounding walls and against all the towns of Judah, I will pronounce my judgments on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me, in burning incense to other gods, and in worshiping what their hands have made.

Get yourself ready, stand up, and say to them, whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them. Today, I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you, but will not overcome you for I am with you and will rescue you declares the Lord. Thanks, Dean.

Let me add my welcome to you. My name is Philip Cooper. I'm 1 of the elders at Cornerstone. And as as Dean said, we're finishing what I didn't call, but somebody else called a mini series in Jeremiah. We've got – this is our second week looking at Jeremiah, chapter 1.

So we've seen the whole thing read and we're going to get stuck into it in a minute. But let's pray first. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it's a living word that it speaks to us today. We pray as we look at this chapter that you'll help us to understand it, that you'll take your word, put it in our hearts and our minds, that we might be changed by it and become more Christlike.

In Jesus' name, amen. Now, sometimes you have to break things up. It's not always easy, breaking up a group or a team, is never popular. Most people don't like change. And of course, if something's going well, then people don't really understand why it's happening at all.

1 of the famous UK sporting examples of this was Manchester United under sir Alex Ferguson. Who had a very, very successful team that won title after title including a Treble and had players like David Beckham and the Neville Brothers and so on in it, and then he sold some of them. And they weren't that old, and they seemed to be at the height of their powers, if you like, as a team. And the footballing world was puzzled at the time. What was he doing?

Yet with hindsight, of course, it was seen as part of his management genius, really, because he went on and rebuilt the team and repeated all those successes again. Showing not only that sometimes you have to break things for them to grow, but also he was teaching certain players, I guess, that no individual, however good, is bigger than the team. Now similarly, if any of you when we had the first lock down in the summer. Netflix, I think it was, had the series on Michael Jordan called The Last Dance. It was very popular at the time.

And it was a similar story. They were at the height really in 96, 97 as a team. And management came in and started talking about breaking them up. Jordan, who was never likely to be sold, was pretty scathing about this in the program. I remember him saying, He looked at some other team in the league and said, you know, they've been rebuilding for 42 years and had got no success whatsoever.

And the result in that case was the management kept them together for 1 further season, 87 88 or 97 98. 97 98. Which was the last dance of that team before in fact they were broken up. Now, if those sporting examples mean nothing to you at all, then let's switch tack and talk about home groups, because we can be very resistant to any changes in home groups. Even and I've noticed this, even when groups aren't going very well, and the leader can't wait to get out of Wednesday night.

They nevertheless seem to suddenly find cohesion when there's any mention of change. Yet, we all know restructuring is right to do. You can't have cliques building up in a church. You can't have groups that are resistant to any new people being added. You can't have home groups who only want to spend time together.

It causes all sorts of problems if you don't change things sometimes. But nevertheless changing is not popular. So imagine Jeremiah's discomfort when he's called to be a prophet who is going to tell the nation of Israel to change. Now remember, last week, he wasn't keen on the whole idea of being a prophet. We looked at that in some detail.

Chapter 1 verse 6. The last sovereign lord, I said, I do not know how to speak. I'm too young. Was he sort of arguments for for not being a prophet? Because he had a nice little job as a priest coming up.

He didn't really want to be a prophet. Now I have to say, I'm not sure I would have picked those arguments. I think the thing that would have concerned me most would be the clothes you have to wear as a profit. Because, you know, if John the Baptist had that sort of camel coat thing going on, he had to eat locusts and honey, and that would have been a big problem for me. And even this morning, if you were watching the livestream this morning, did you notice Elijah it it described it and it said it's the bloke who's wearing hair.

And I was thinking, well, that would have definitely been at the top of my list of problems with being a profit. But, God brushes aside his youth. He brushes aside, he's not being able to speak in his view. He says, look, it's of no consequence because I've chosen you. And because those weaknesses or those things, we looked at this in detail week.

Those things you see as weaknesses, I know about. That's you know, it's part of why I chose you. And what we see this evening is he reassures Jeremiah. Look at verse 7. But the Lord said to me, do not say I'm too young, you must go to everyone I send you to and say, whatever I command you.

Do not be afraid of them for I am with you and will rescue you declares the Lord. Now note the condition of the promise. Before Jeremiah would experience, if you like God's presence or the fact that God's with him and that God's going to rescue him, he has to go. He has to do what and speak, what God tells him to do. Now, again, I don't know about you.

If I was having a chat with God and I'm nervous, I'm not sure I wanna be a prophet, phrases like, don't be afraid. And in particular, I'm gonna rescue you, would not, you know, fill me with joy. They're only gonna freak me out more. What do I need to be afraid of would be the first question I would ask, or you're rescue me, but from what? Why would I need rescuing?

Do you mean rescue like Jonah getting swallowed by a fish? Or do you mean ask you like you rescued Paul after he's been shipwrecked or imprisoned, and the prison doors fly open, or when he's flogged and you've managed to get him out of town, None of those scenarios of being rescue would reassure me. But Jeremiah doesn't even get the chance to ask these questions Because god carries on into the heart of what Jeremiah's ministry is gonna be versus 9 and 10. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, I have put words my words in your mouth. See today, I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down to destroy and overthrow to build and to plant.

Now we have it. Jeremiah's role is not just to speak out God's words, but the message that he's gonna bring is gonna destroy and then rebuild. The pattern of his ministry is set by these verses with 4 negative verbs. Do you see that? To uproot, to tear down, to destroy, to overthrow and only 2 positive verbs being rebuilding and planning, planting.

So it's not going to be an easy ministry for him. It's gonna be, if you like, towards the negative, 4 verses 2. And it must have dawned on Jeremiah as he heard this, that it was fast becoming clear exactly who he was going to need rescuing from. The nation of Israel. So our first point this evening is the pattern of his ministry.

Jeremiah is going to have to uproot tear down, destroy, overthrow, and build and plant. It's exactly what we were talking about in the introduction when we were looking at sports teams and home groups. Sometimes, you have to go through a painful, breaking up, breaking down process before you can start rebuilding. And that's what Jeremiah has called to here. It's exactly the same by the way in churches.

If if you plant a new church, You have a clean slate, don't you? You know, a blank piece of paper. You can you can do it exactly as you want to do it as a church planter. But if you take over an existing church, then you've got a whole load of well, we might call it trellis, can be a good thing, frameworks. But then you've also got traditions, the way things have been done for many years.

Some of which might be good. But some of which you might choose to do differently. So you might need to tear down. Up roots destroy, overthrow, and that is gonna upset people. And you'll have to do it before you can build and plant.

Jeremiah's given no option here. God wants Israel, torn down, destroyed, uprooted, overthrow before there's any hope of rebuilding and planting. Yet it's not as harsh, actually, as it sounds. Because God never destroys for just the purpose of destruction. He destroys in order that things might be built up again.

And this is his call to Jeremiah. So let's just apply this for a moment to us. You see, isn't it true that there are many things which have to be torn down in this country, in our churches, even in our own lives, In our individual hearts and lives, there are things which must be destroyed, or overthrown or torn down because we've put our trust in the wrong things. And God needs to deal with that before he can rebuild us by his spirit into a life correctly focused on Jesus. It's like Tom was saying this morning, how often do we run off when things are difficult to do to an idol, for example, he was saying, wasn't he?

Or to turn inwards, to look for us, you know, to look at at ourselves and Because in in the end, that's where our real trust is. And then finally, when we run out of options, we consult the living God. Jesus too had to deal with the same thing. He had to deal with the infected heart of Israel, He had to clear the temple of the money changes. He had to attack their outward religion and the man made rules that they'd piled up on everything, you know, the Sabbath.

Do you think about Jesus and the Sabbath? He really goes for it on the Sabbath. Why? Because they were putting their trust in the wrong thing. The pattern of Jeremiah's ministry is set in these verses, God is calling him to take to Judah an unpopular message.

There's no doubt that this would have been a frightening prospect for Jeremiah. And so God, who's a loving God, provides further reassurance. And that's our second point this evening. So the first 1, the partner of his ministry, the second the backing for his ministry. See, as we've seen in verse 9, God touches Jeremiah's mouth and says, don't worry.

I've given you my words. We probably have all sorts of COVID problems with touching people's mouths right now, but But God doesn't. And it deals with Jeremiah's argument that he's not a good speaker. But secondly, there's more to it than just saying, okay, you're not a good speaker. Have some words.

He's reassuring him via touch because touch itself is very important, very intimate, particularly the head. 1 commentator says this, God uses not the silver tongued orator, but the 1 whose tongue has been touched with coals from the altar. God uses not the most gifted and talented person, but the 1 touched by the hand of god. God uses the most unlikely persons to shake a church, or a community or a nation. God is a personal god seeking a relationship with us, and he touches Jeremiah's mouth to reassure him.

And then he gives him 2 visions, 2 symbols of what was going to be accomplished through his ministry. And the first is full of reassurance. Verse 11 and 12. The word of the Lord came to me What do you see, Jeremiah? I see the branch of an almond tree, I replied.

The Lord said to me, you have seen correctly for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled. I'll just have a think for a moment. What do you instinctively look for to show that winter is over and spring is arriving? But how do you notice when spring's coming? Is it a is it a particular bird in your garden?

Is it cherry blossom on a tree? Is it daffodils? Is it more daylight on the walk home from work? What is it that that gives you that indication that spring is coming. Where Jeremiah was born, it was almond blossom.

Almond blossom was the first tree to blossom in in the year. It was the first sign of the promise of spring and the Jews called the tree in Hebrew, the watcher, Because not only was the tree watching for the return of of the sun and and the warming of the earth, but the Jews watched it as the first sign of the end of winter. There's actually a little play on words going on here in in the Hebrew. Because the word fragmentary is very, very similar, there's only 1 letter difference in the original language to the word he uses in verse 12 when he says, I am watching. So, yes, the vision is a picture of health and healing and better times ahead like the spring coming.

But what God is really showing Jeremiah is that he's watching, that he's not asleep, that he's wide awake, and he's watching to make sure that what he says will come about. In other words, he wants Jeremiah to know that he's backing him. That what he says when he speaks the words of God will come to pass. We heard that this morning again, didn't we? And we should be reassured by what this vision tells us.

Everything God says in his word will happen. Every last 1 of God's promises will be fulfilled. Now just think about that for a moment. About, you know, you just bring to your head. Some of the promises of God that you lean on.

Your redemption through Jesus Christ. The forgiveness of your sins by his death on a cross. That you will be filled with the righteousness of Christ, that if you belong to him, he will never leave you. That 1 day in the future, we will go to be in heaven with Jesus. That right now, Jesus is preparing a place for you, and he will come back and 1 day take you by the hand, and we will be with him for eternity.

I'm sure there's others, but those are amazing promises. And what this is telling us is they will come to pass. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 20, fantastic verse. For no matter how many promises God has made, They are yes in Christ. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ.

See god is reassuring Jeremiah. I'm in charge. I'm in control. I'm backing your ministry. And the words you speak that are mine will come to pass.

So we'd spend a long time here reassuring Jeremiah. With that vision. Then he gives him a second vision and it's our third point. It's the core message of his ministry So we've seen the pattern of his ministry, the backing for his ministry, and now we're looking at the core message of his ministry. Verse 13, The word of the Lord came to me again.

What do you see? I see a pot that is boiling, I answered. It is tilting toward us from the north. The Lord said to me, from the north, disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land, I'm about to summon all the peoples of the northern kingdoms declared the Lord. Their kings will come and set up their homes in the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem they will come against all her surrounding walls and against all the towns of Judah.

I will pronounce my judgments on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me in burning incense to other gods and in worshiping what their hands have made. God is showing Jeremiah that he's going to judge Judah. That Babylon from the north would not only come and invade them but would dominate to such an extent that they would set up their thrones at the gates of Jerusalem. That's worth us knowing that at that time, Assyria was actually the aggressive power in the region. And so in a way it would be a slight surprise to Jeremiah and to the people that it was gonna be Babylon that were gonna come and conquer Judah, bringing God's judgment on them.

The point was not that it was just, you know, God showing off that he can predict going forwards, and he could predict Babylon getting stronger. But it's showing us that God's in control. God brings the judgment on the nation. Verse 15, I'm about to summon all the peoples of the northern kingdom declares the Lord. I will pronounce my judgments verse 16.

It is God who decides who will be the strong nation and who will be the weak. And it's God who summons the Babylonians. Without knowing it actually, because they didn't know Yahweh They are following his marching orders. Judges sin is God's prerogative, and he's gonna exercise it here. What we see throughout the book of Jeremiah if you keep on reading is kings of Judah failing to believe.

Kings who think that all this is idle threats that Jeremiah is making, that Jerusalem is so strong it will never fall. They don't believe him. They don't believe that God will come and punish them for their idolatry. They don't really believe that they need to pay attention to god. As Tom said this morning, they're casual.

Now any of that sound familiar. Do you know people who don't believe in a God of judgment? Who don't believe anything bad will really happen, who perhaps even think the west the developed world at the moment is all powerful. It can never, you know, be assailed. It's extraordinary, I think after this pandemic that people still think like this, but they do.

I sometimes Watch your program, I have been a lot while we've been on lockdown because it's on 1 o'clock, I think, in the afternoon. I watched a program called squawkBox, squawk box. On CNBC, it's a business channel. And it's about the financial markets in the U. S.

As they open, because that's 6 AM or something in U. S. Time. And part of the introduction every day is this. Welcome to squawkbox from the NASDAQ building in New York, the most powerful city in the world.

Now okay. But will it always be? It was Rome once At the time of the British Empire, it was London. Even now, I guess some of us would say, well, isn't it Washington rather than New York? And isn't it about to be somewhere in China?

There are reasons why a nation ceases to be a power or is possibly torn down. Judah De Here was a nation that had turned away from the living God. Look at verse 16. I will pronounce my judgments on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me in burning incense to other gods and in worshiping what their hands have made. You see, they, in Judah, had forsaken God, and they'd done it by showing by doing 2 things really.

Firstly, burning incense, before other gods. In other words, idolatry, they were exalting the ideas and philosophies that were based, basically on the passions and imaginations of man. Secondly, idolatry is the first thing. Secondly, they were worshiping, it says, the works of their own hands. IE, they were exalting man.

Pointing to man as a solution to his own problems. In other words, the rise of humanism. And isn't that exactly where we are today? Let's stay with the financial world for a moment. There's a popular investment trend that's going around certainly America and the UK and Europe.

And it is essentially based on the advance of man. What it says is this, you would be stupid to bet against the advancement of science and the human race. So it says you must invest in biotech and AI and computers, because man is inexorably moving forward. And by the way, it uses the speed of the COVID vaccine as proof of this, that we can get 10 years down to 9 months or whatever it is. For a vaccine.

Now look, I'm not saying don't invest in science or AI or biotech. What I'm saying is the underlying reason that they suggest that we do it, that man is getting better, that things are improving and advancing, is not what the Bible says, and it's not even true of our own experience, is it? Have we solved starvation? Have we solved a lack of water in parts of the world? Have we solved infant mortality?

Have we solved abortion? Has prostitution? And human trafficking completely died out because we're we're so self controlled now. Are we happier, healthier, more lovely people? Actually, I thought Rachel Jones on on Wednesday night, if you were tuned into that.

She touched on this topic under the when she was talking about high expectations. Because the younger generation here have been brought up really in an era of prosperity, of economic growth, of technology moving forwards very quickly. But was the result happiness? No. She said they found that it piled pressure on them.

What if they can't do it? What if they get left behind? You know, there was a weight of expectations because of this dragging them down. So the result was, anxiety was up, mental health problems are up. Things are not better.

As we place more reliance on the progress of man, and they weren't better in Judah either. See, those 2 things they were doing are signs of decay in a nation And God is telling Jeremiah, I'm in control, and I'm going to bring judgment against them. The unusual thing about the vision about the pop Jeremiah saw was that it wasn't just sitting there level over the fire. It was tilted towards Judah away from the north. So at any moment, it could spew its boiling contents all over Judah.

Might be the day after he said it? Jeremiah doesn't know. It might be in a month's time. It might be in a year's time. It might be in 3 kings' time after he's gone through monarch after monarch.

But you see, going back to the vision of the almond tree where God reassures Jeremiah. He says, don't worry. What I say will happen and I'm telling you this pot is tilting and we'll pour, it will happen. If you get a chapter 39 of Jeremiah, this is what we read. In the ninth year of Zedekiah, King of Judah in the tenth month Nebukenezer, the King of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it.

And on the ninth day of fourth month of Zedekai's eleventh year, the city wall was broken through. Then all the officials of the King of Babylon came and took seats, meaning taking their thrones in the middle gate. The core message of Jeremiah's Ministry is going to be bleak, and it's a frightening picture for him, and it's a pot that's boiling and tilting towards Judah. And a young prophet is called by God to take that difficult message to Judah, to the king. So a loving God doesn't leave him there.

And we get our fourth and final point, the backbone for his ministry. Verse 17. Get yourself ready. Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them or I will terrify you before them.

Today, I've made you a fortified city and iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land. Against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you but will not overcome you for I am with you and will rescue you declares the Lord. See, god's reassuring Jeremiah. Look, you've got everything you need because you've got the living God standing with you, standing behind you.

That makes Jeremiah a 1 man fortified city. A 1 man iron pillar, a 1 man bronze wall that will stand firm against everything and everyone else. They'll not overcome you, says, God, God's really comforting him here. You're gonna be strong and you're gonna be tough. You're gonna be like iron and bronze yes, people are gonna oppose you, but they won't overcome you because I am with you and I will rescue you.

Is giving Jeremiah some backbone to the ministry. But interestingly, I don't know if you noticed it when we when we just read those verses. He expects some from him too. Yes, it's reassuring, but it's also a call to action. Look at verse 17.

Get yourself ready. Stand up Jeremiah and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified or I will tell if terrified you before them. So God's with Jeremiah but he's expecting him to put some effort in. He's expecting him to be resilient.

He's expecting him to get his head in the game. In reality, just as we saw last week, he's expecting him to obey. Jeremiah needs to have courage It needs to stand up, it needs to get ready to speak. So real sort of as we close this is a real application for us. See, so often, I don't know about you, but when we have to be courageous, and it might be just in talking with your neighbor.

Might be in talking to somebody about Jesus at work. Might be in the face of opposition. So often, we can be like Jeremiah, can't we? We think to ourselves, because I'm not up to this. You know, we think we're too young or we're not very good with words, or we're just not brave enough.

We look at ourselves and we think we're substandard. We're not a fortified city. I don't feel like an iron pillar or bronze wall. But in all those instances, when we think like that, we're taking God out of the picture, aren't we? Carriage for the Christian is not an act of will that you have to find somewhere from within yourself.

It is not an act of character, courage for the Christian is an act of faith. That's the key. To be courageous means having faith in the character of God in believing that he will keep his promises. See, for us to be courageous means remembering the almond tree. Remembering that we're in relationship with a sovereign, all powerful God.

And when we do, then we're like iron and bronze. Because is there anything stronger than a believer standing firm in the Word of God. Is there anything stronger than a believer standing firm in the Word of God? Is there anything stronger than a follower of Jesus Christ standing in the power of the Holy Spirit, aware of the promises of God and looking forwards to an eternity in heaven to come. Let's pray.

Fatherly, thank you for this amazing chapter. For how it's spoken to us over these 2 weeks, help us to look for courage, to speak for you, to act for you, to obey you, not from within, not in ourselves, not in other idols, but in Jesus. Lord, give us your power that we might be willing to be abate, obedient. Help us to be people who don't go first to idols, secondly to ourselves, finally to you. Help us instead to be people who run to you.

We thank you for this these pictures this evening help us to remember them, the almond tree, the tilting pots that we might learn from these, that we might dwell on them. We asked for that through thinking about these things this week, through thinking about the fact that to be courageous isn't something we have to try and find. To be courageous means trusting you, trusting your promises. And help us as we dwell on these things this week, Lord, to be changed people. In Jesus' name, amen.