Trust in the Lord

[00:00:00] Church. I want to say I love this church. [00:00:10] I am that God lets me to be part of such an awesome church. [00:00:16] And I also want to say I love you. And I appreciate your willingness to serve God in such a generous and conspicuous way. [00:00:26] Our church tries things that 99% of churches won't try. [00:00:32] And we don't just try them, we succeed in doing them. [00:00:39] And we're able to do that because of your commitment to Jesus Christ. And I want you to know I appreciate you very, very much. [00:00:48] Our dear heavenly Father, thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you for all these people of God. [00:00:57] Thank you for America, where we can gather in the lawn of our church and sing praises to Jesus Christ and worship you openly and unintimidated. [00:01:10] I do appreciate your steadfast love and faithfulness. I pray that your spirit would whisper to our hearts to today in Christ's name, amen. [00:01:21] I saw in the news this week that they did a poll, and the poll said percent of Americans are proud to be an american. [00:01:36] I was shocked by that. [00:01:40] So I go on record. I'm one of the 41%. I'm proud to be an American. [00:01:46] The 4 July is just more than a day to have a grill with me. The is. I want to, I want to respect the people who made it possible for us to do this today. I think we should give everybody in our armed forces a hand. [00:02:09] Hold it. That won't work. [00:02:16] We're just problem solving here. This is what we do. [00:02:23] Good. [00:02:27] But it's easy for a person like me to be patriotic. [00:02:34] I want to tell you the story today of the prophet Jeremiah. [00:02:41] It's a very famous name in the Bible, and it's a rather large book. And most people know about the prophet vaguely. But I want to tell you his story today because he was a very patriotic man, but he was patriotic in a way that nobody appreciated. [00:03:02] You see, he was born about 650 years before Christ, and he lived about 80 years and died about 570 BC. [00:03:16] He was probably stoned to death by his own people in Egypt. [00:03:22] And from his birth until his stoning, he lived an absolutely difficult life. [00:03:30] He started his ministry under the king Josiah. [00:03:37] Josiah was a reformation king. Josiah's grandfather and father were just absolutely, horrendously wicked people. [00:03:49] They offended the Lord in about every way you could offend the Lord. [00:03:54] And then God raised up JoSiah, and Josiah made reformation. He tore down the bales. He asked people to come back to goddesse. He did the kind of things that God could bless, and the kingdom thrived. [00:04:11] The Egyptians invaded, and Josiah went out with an army and fought with the EGyptians, and he was killed in battle. [00:04:21] And he was replaced by his son, a man named Jehoahaz, who, as you might guess, he was not a good man. [00:04:33] And he started doing all the things that Josiah had reformed the country and they stopped doing. [00:04:43] JeHoahaz didn't last long, and he was replaced. [00:04:48] The Babylonians came to Jerusalem in 605, and he was replaced by another son of Josiah. And this man's name was Yahoakim. [00:05:03] He was a bad man and he ruled poorly. And God said, through JerEmiah, I'm going to judge this country and I'm going to use the babylonian army to do it. You can imagine how that offended everybody, that Jeremiah was saying, God is against you and he's in favor of you. The enemies you scare the most, that scare you the most. [00:05:30] He was replaced. Actually, he died. His son reigned three months. The Babylonians captured Jerusalem, 597, and they took 10,000 people captive and they took the king captive to BAbylon. [00:05:49] And then Josiah's third son, a man named Zedekiah, he became king and he was weak. He was the kind of king that he wasn't a good leader. He just tried to please everybody. And when you try to please everybody, you know what happens? You don't please anybody. And Jeremiah preached to him and did everything he could to engage him, to be a follower of God, but Zedekiah wouldn't do it. [00:06:22] And the Babylonians came in 586. They captured Zedekiah. They murdered his sons, they blinded him, took him to BAbylon, and they completely tore the city of Jerusalem down. They tore down everything that could be torn down. It was a rubble. It was a heap of rubble when they left. [00:06:46] And Jeremiah did most of his ministry. That shows up in the book in the time of Zedekiah that eleven years before the Babylonians destroyed the city, Jeremiah tells us how God made him a prophet. He was actually born a priest. His family lived in Anasoth, which you Bible readers know was the city of Abiathar, King David's chief priest. So he was probably a descendant of Abiathar, who was the chief priest when King David was king. [00:07:27] Ah, but instead of being a priest, the lord called him and he tells us what his call from God was like. This is what he said. [00:07:38] The word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. [00:07:52] Listen to what God said. Prophets don't make themselves. Prophets are made by God, listen to what he said. When you were being formed in your mother's womb, I was working on you to make you the kind of man that could do what I wanted you to do. [00:08:09] And after, before you were born, I knew you. I knew the kind of man you would grow up to be. [00:08:18] I knew the kind of heart you would have. I knew what your strengths and weaknesses would be, and I consecrated you. I said, you have a special job that I want you to do. [00:08:32] And that special job is I want you to be a prophet. Well, Jeremiah says, hey, I can't do this. I'm just a young man. He was probably in his early twenties, and he said, nobody's going to listen to me. I'm young. [00:08:50] And God said to him, do not say I'm a young person. [00:08:57] For to whom all I send you, you will go. [00:09:01] And whatever I command you, you will speak. Now, listen. Here it is. [00:09:06] 66 times in the Bible, God says, do not be afraid. [00:09:11] I will deliver you. [00:09:15] And then Jeremiah said he had a strange experience where it felt like God touched his face. [00:09:25] And the Lord said, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. [00:09:30] See, I have set you this day over nations and kingdoms, to pluck up and break down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. [00:09:42] In this statement, you hear the double work of God. The one is the work of judgments. Wickedness is going to be judged. Jeremiah. It's gone too far. But then there is the word of hope. Not only will you destroy and overthrow, but you will build and plant wherever God dismantles something because it is so wicked, he can't let it go. He builds something beautiful in its place. [00:10:12] Ah, I'm. I hear people worry. They say, I'm worried about America. We're not okay. When God undoes one thing, he creates another thing. [00:10:24] I know you read in the paper that your church is dying all over America. Look around. Does this look like the church is dying all over America? [00:10:37] God is doing healthy things all over America. I'm sorry it doesn't make the news, but God is at work in powerful ways today, just like he was then in his ministry, Jeremiah preached a very famous sermon. It was called the temple sermon. So we went into the temple and he preached this sermon. And I've preached some bad sermons, but I've never had a riot because of the sermon I preached. [00:11:13] Jeremiah preached this sermon, and it actually ended up creating a riotous. I'm going to tell you a little bit. Are you interested? What was in that sermon? I'll tell you a little bit of what's in it. [00:11:25] This is what Jeremiah wrote. He wrote the sermon down after he preached it. [00:11:31] He said to the people at church that day, behold, you trust in deceptive words. [00:11:39] Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in my house, which is called by thy name, saying, we are delivered only to go on doing these abominations. [00:12:03] This house, which is called by my name, has become a den of robbers. [00:12:10] That didn't go over too well at church that day, and that was just part of the sermon. It got really, really ugly. [00:12:18] They threatened to kill Jeremiah, but God delivered him. [00:12:24] I don't want you to think of Jeremiah as an angry man preaching angry sermons. [00:12:31] He shows us his heart in another place when he says this, the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not all saved. You know what he's saying? We miss the deadline. [00:12:47] And then he says, for the wound of the daughter of my people, my heart is wounded, I mourn, and, ah, dismay has taken hold of me. [00:13:01] He said, is there no bomb in Gilead? Is there no physician there? [00:13:06] Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? [00:13:11] Oh, that my head were waters, and that my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. [00:13:22] He was not an angry fundamentalist. He was a man who had a gentle soul. And he said, I want you to know how I feel. [00:13:32] I wish my head was a giant cistern and that my eyes were fountains, because I would cry endlessly for what's happening to my people. [00:13:47] I wonder if you would let God work on your heart for what we weep about in America. [00:13:58] It's one thing to be angry about politics. It's one thing to criticize what's happening. It's another thing to say to God, my heart is broken for what's happening in the world around me. [00:14:14] And I want to offer my broken heart to you in prayer and saying, would you please heal our land? Would you please look on us with favor again? Would you please cause your face to shine upon us and be gracious to us? It's one thing to be angry and critical. It's another thing to be broken hearted for the world that's not functioning well around us and to weep to God and say, would you please bless us freshly? Would you please do some new work in our country that we once again can sing God bless America and really, really mean it. [00:15:00] I want you to understand what Jeremiah was asking people to do. [00:15:06] What he was asking was not unrealistic, he says. [00:15:13] Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in riches. [00:15:26] But let the one who boasts, boasts in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord. [00:15:44] Jeremiah wasn't asking people to do things that were impossible. He was asking them to stop finding their sense of well being in themselves. [00:15:57] He was saying, the wise man shouldn't boast in his wisdom. The strong man shouldn't boast in his strength. If you really want to know what's good for you, it's not what you can do by yourself. It's that you understand and know God. [00:16:14] Knowing God is the game changer. And listen, he said specifically what he wants us to know about God. He wants us to know that God is a God of steadfast love. Remember, he loves us because he's loving, not because we're lovable. He's a God of justice. He wants people to treat each other right. Oppression and abuse offends God, and he is a God of righteousness. He just wants us to do what is right, I by day, and be pleasing to him. [00:16:48] The people actually liked Jeremiah's sermons. It was the religious leaders who got mad. [00:16:57] And the chief priest then was a man named Pashur. [00:17:02] And Jeremiah said to Pashur, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it. For they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words. When Pashur heard that, he lost his temper and he got the people who worked with him in the temple, and they grabbed Jeremiah, and they beat the crap out of him, and then they put him in stocks to be publicly shamed. [00:17:41] Jeremiah was the most patriotic man alive then. But because the religious leaders hated what he was saying, they abused him for it. [00:17:52] You know, sometimes we have to be willing to speak truth to power. [00:17:57] Sometimes we have to be the ones who speak up in a room and say, this isn't right. Sometimes we have to be the one to speak up in the room and say, this is really not going to turn out well if we keep going on this course. [00:18:12] The church has always had a purifying effect on culture. We just can't let culture drag us into the sewer with them. Sometimes we have to have the spirit of Christ in us that simply says, I'm trying to live for something bigger than that. My life means more to me than that. [00:18:36] I'm absolutely certain that would not be pleasing to Christ. And so I'm going to choose something different, and I want it to be known that I'm choosing something different. [00:18:50] This is not a time of total hopelessness. So Jeremiah ticked him off again, and he got put in prison. [00:18:57] And when he was in prison, the babylonian army was ToTALLy surrounding JeRusalem. They had totally surrounded it. They had taken all the little Cities around it. And one of the Cities that they took was AnAthoth, JereMiah's Hometown. [00:19:13] Well, he had a cousin who lived in Jerusalem, and the cousin came to him in prison and said, I'm going to sell our Family Property. Do you want to buy it? [00:19:24] Now, that's an odd thing to say. The Babylonian army is on the property you're trying to sell. [00:19:34] I wouldn't want to be the real estate person who had to sell that land. [00:19:39] So his cousin came to him, and Jeremiah was thinking, man, you're nuts. [00:19:47] I'm not buying that land. But the LOrD whispered to Jeremiah, and he said, buy that land. [00:19:52] I want to send a message of hope. [00:19:55] You buy that land, because someday the Babylonians are going to be gone, and someday I'm going to bless Israel again. And someday this place is going to be beautiful and prosperous. And whatever you pay for that land, it will be a fraction of what it's worth. When I bless the land. [00:20:16] Church I am a believer in the blessings of God. I believe God wants to bless people. I believe he wants to bless you. I believe he wants to bless your family. I believe he wants to bless this church. I believe he wants to bless us in our businesses. But we have to be people of faith and hope. Our trust has to be in the promises of the goodness of God, and not in the stock market or not in somebody's opinion about culture or not in some political point of view. If you want to look at the future with hope, you have to look up to God and say, he is a good God and it delights him. It delights him to bless his children. [00:21:06] It wasn't enough to throw Jeremiah into prison. It didn't satisfy the religious leaders. [00:21:12] So they talked the king into taking him out of jail and taking him to a cistern that was dry. And they actually threw him in this cistern that the bottom was covered in mud. [00:21:26] And the book of Jeremiah says that poor Jeremiah sunk in the mud. Now, some of you have been baptized in this pond. And you know what it is to sink in the mud. A little bit of. He didn't sink up to his ankles. The guy was a waist deep in the cistern and it looked like they were going to have their way and they were going to kill him. [00:21:51] But there was another man of God named Ebed Melech. And Ebed Melech went to the king and said, you know, if you let them kill Jeremiah, you'll never hear another word from the Lord. [00:22:05] And so the king said, alright, I'll give you 30 soldiers, go get him out. It was so bad to get him out. They had to take ropes and tie loops around them. And Jeremiah held out his arms like this. They put the loops over his arms and it took 30 men to pull him out of that mud. [00:22:25] I would have been praying some very angry prayers if I was in that position. [00:22:32] I would not have had a gentle spirit toward those who were. [00:22:38] So they pull JEremiah out, they wash him up, they take him in, the king. And the king, Zedekiah says to him, do you have a word from the Lord? [00:22:47] And Jeremiah says, yeah, I do. The problem is you don't want to hear it. [00:22:53] And I'm afraid to tell you it because every time I tell you the truth, things get ugly for me. [00:23:00] So Zedekiah said, I promise nothing will happen. And this is what Jeremiah said to Zedekiah. [00:23:09] Thus saith the lord, the God of host, the God of IsrAel. [00:23:14] If you will surrender to the officials of the babylonian king, then YoUR life will be spared and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. [00:23:26] If you do not surrender to the officials of the king Babylon, the king of Babylon, then this city will be destroyed. It will be given into the hands of the Chaldeans and they will burn it with fire and you shall not escape. [00:23:41] Zedekiah said, I am afraid to do it. And Jeremiah said, look, just trust God and obey the voice of the Lord. [00:23:50] If you refuse this, your family is not going to survive. [00:23:56] Well, Zedekiah wouldn't listen to it. He thought he could escape. So he got everything together and they thought they would dig a hole through the wall and the Babylonians wouldn't see him. They would race toward Jericho and they'd be able to get away. Well, the Babylonians caught him and they murdered all his, they killed all his sons and they gouged his eyes out and they took him to Babylon as a slave. And they tore the city of Jerusalem down. [00:24:26] It was a pile of broken rock and it stayed that way for almost 70 years. [00:24:36] Church Jeremiah's message is a message to us. We have to trust the Lord. [00:24:45] Regardless of what it looks like around us, regardless of what other people are predicting. The safest thing to do is trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path. [00:25:03] If we're going to have a. [00:25:10] If we're going to have a significant effect on the community that we live in, if we're going to have a significant effect on this generation, we have to be people who have undaunted trust and belief in God. We have to be people who are able to say, my God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above what you can ask or think, and then we have to obey him and all. [00:25:36] Well, Jerusalem was destroyed. [00:25:40] The Babylonians said to Jeremiah, you can come with us and we'll give you a stipend. You'll live well the rest of your life. [00:25:48] But Jeremiah said, you know, I'm a prophet. I can't do that. And he stayed with the remnant in the land. [00:25:56] The Babylonians appointed a man named Gedaliah to be the governor. Some people murdered him. And now everybody was afraid that the Babylonians were going to come back and kill everybody. So they said to Jeremiah, what should we do? We think we should flee to Egypt. Jeremiah said, do not flee to Egypt. You stay here. [00:26:18] God is looking out for you. He's going to care for you. Everything's going to be okay. Of course, they said to him, we don't believe you. [00:26:27] You're just setting us up for the Babylonians to kill us all. And so they went to Egypt and they kidnapped Jeremiah and made him go with them. [00:26:37] He was saying, don't go. This is not good. It's not going to turn out well. None of YoUr families will ever return if you go to egypt. And they kidnapped him and took him down there. [00:26:48] And one of the last prophecies, he said was there was a great egyptian plaza. And he said, do you see that plaza? The king of babylon will set up his chair on that plaza. [00:27:01] They thought the Egyptians would defend them, but the Egyptians couldn't even defend themselves. [00:27:09] And then church religious history says that at some point JErEMIah offended them to the point that they stoned him to Death. [00:27:21] You say, why is. Why would we take time to tell the story of JerEMIaH? Jeremiah told people before Christ what kind of person Christ would be. [00:27:34] JeremIah was a gentle man, and ChriSt was as gentle as they come. [00:27:39] Jeremiah was a prophet, and told people things that only he could tell them, because he learned it from God. Christ was God's ultimate prophet. [00:27:49] Jeremiah suffered severely for doing what God asked him to do. And we all know that Jesus Christ suffered the crucifixion in obedience to the will of God. [00:28:03] And as Jeremiah told people what Jesus would look like 600 years before he came, we're supposed to tell people what Jesus looks like now? [00:28:15] You don't have to be a prophet to be a person who can share with others. This is who Jesus Christ is. This is what's beautiful about him. This is what's significant about him. My life is better because the love of Christ helps me to think better, helps me to make better choices. My life is better because Jesus teaches me how to treat people around me the way he wants them to be treated. In the very same way that Jesus Jeremiah represented Christ 600 years before he was here. We represent him 2000 years since he's been here. And in the very same way Jeremiah called his culture, to reconsider the majesty of Jesus Christ, to reconsider their obedience of Christ, to reconsider the blessings that will come when you submit yourself to Christ. We have a mission from goddess. Each and every one of us have been filled with the Holy Spirit for this good work of saying to our culture, Christ is better than what you think. Christ is more beautiful than what you think. Christ has more blessings than you ever imagined. And your life will be infinitely better with Jesus Christ and without the nonsense that is controlling you now. [00:29:37] Our dear heavenly Father, thank you for the life of Jeremiah. Thank you for the example it is to us. [00:29:44] Thank you that he was such a courageous man. [00:29:47] Thank you that no matter how he suffered, he wouldn't back down. [00:29:55] He couldn't be intimidated. [00:29:58] He was a bright and shining light in his world. And father, I pray the same thing for us today. I pray that your spirit would do something powerful in our lives and we would have this sense that we are your people and we have a work to do of glorifying your name and being a bright and shining light in our world. I pray that every single one of us would be inspired to serve you in the kind of way that people would see our good works and glorify you in heaven. And I thank you so much for your blessings on this church. Amen.