Good morning! I’m bringing you greetings back from very beautiful West Yellowstone, Montana. I was there last weekend to preach at the Sunday evening service of installation for Steve Lympus, our former Associate Pastor. I can report that Steve and Laura are doing very well in that town which has about 1200 people in it, with an extra 8,000 in the summer! It’s a wonderful church community that is very excited to have them there, and the whole weekend was really a fun time. For those of you who know Steve well, you’ll be happy to know that in his morning sermon…he did manage to slip in a Lord of the Rings analogy!

This morning we’re starting a new sermon series. Or, as I prefer to look at it, a 9 week conversation with the prophet Jeremiah. Here’s your Bible trivia for the morning: Jeremiah is the longest book of all the prophets. Not the most chapters (though it has 52), but the most words.

It is a fascinating book, with verbal battles with false prophets, a king carving up a prophetic scroll and throwing it piece by piece into the fire, pictures of almond trees and boiling pots and wooden yokes. It is a book in which we actually get quite a picture of the person and personality of the prophet, Jeremiah. He’s very human, full of emotion and doubts and boldness, all at the same time. It is also a very difficult book to just read through, because it is unfortunately not laid out in chronological order. So knowing the historical background helps us understand what we are reading, and we’ll spend a little extra time on that this morning.

A number of years ago, someone coined the phrase “defining moment.” I want you to think for a moment about the “defining moment(s)” in your life. That moment or moments in life where something really critical occurs, internal or external and you realize afterwards that you’ll never be the same again. What would you call your defining moments? When you first started to follow Jesus? When you graduated from college? Or got married? Or started a business? Or lost someone you loved? Or went through a period of illness? What were the critical times that defined and shaped you?

Well, for the people of Israel, God’s chosen people, we could name a few critical moments as the story unfolds in the Old Testament. One huge one would be the “Exodus,” somewhere around the year 1400 BC, when the people Israel escaped from slavery in Egypt through the Red Sea. It was so important that many times in the Old Testament we hear a litany that sounds similar to this: “Remember the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt with a mighty hand!” We could think of others. Maybe the establishment of a monarchy with King David. Or the building of the temple in Jerusalem by King Solomon.

But perhaps the single most identity-shaping event in the Old Testament occurred in 587 BC. That is the year that Babylon, a superpower from the land we know as Iran & Iraq, swept down from the north, laid siege to Jerusalem and eventually overtook the city, carried off the leaders to exile and destroyed the temple. Israel was devastated.

This was the setting for the Jeremiah. It was in the years just prior to this pivotal event that Jeremiah received his calling to be a prophet. It was in the midst of dramatic international events that Jeremiah had the responsibility of speaking God’s word to the people of Israel. It wasn’t an easy word.

This morning, we will read Jeremiah 1:4-10, then skip to 17-19.

Leader: The Word of the Lord.

People: Thanks be to God.

It’s so nice and neat. I say “The Word of the Lord,” you say “Thanks be to God.”

But I don’t think Jeremiah was saying “Thanks be to God!” When the full reality of his calling hit, I think he was more likely to say “Thanks for nothin’, God!” Being a prophet was a strong and thankless calling. Remember, a prophet’s role was to communicate God’s Word, without regard to the impact to his own life. Prophets saw things others did not or would not, and were compelled to speak them. They painfully called people to live well.

This morning we have just enough time to talk a little bit about his calling, the message he was given, and a quick peek into people’s response (including our own).

1. Jeremiah’s call to speak the Word of God was similar to that of other prophets in the Old Testament.

• Moses heard the Lord’s calling through a burning bush and also objected that he couldn’t speak well, and so God consented to have his brother Aaron be the mouthpiece.
• Ezekiel ate a scroll and received God’s word into the very fiber of his being.
• Isaiah was touched on the lips with a burning coal (and when he realized the magnitude of the job, immediately cried out “How long do I have to do this, God?!”).

Jeremiah is going to continuously stretch us to see how big God is. Before we are ever interested in God, God was interested in us.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you (set you apart), I appointed you a prophet,” is where God started with Jeremiah.

Now, some of us wander around our whole lives saying “I wonder what God wants me to do, I wonder if I’m doing God’s will.”

No such problem for Jeremiah. He was just a little reluctant, and with good reason. So he did what we all do when faced with something new and difficult. He tried to get out of it. He, in fact, thinking very fast on his feet, came up with two perfectly legitimate reasons that God should find someone else. One, “I don’t know how to speak/what to say.” Two, “I’m too young.” Both good reasons.

Unfortunately for Jeremiah, God was even quicker on his feet: “Now, don’t be afraid that you’re too young…because I’ll go with you. And don’t worry about what to say, I’ll tell you what to speak.” God is big. He had things planned out long before. And so Jeremiah became a prophet.

In the 21 st century, we are pretty darned reluctant to agree that God’s word is somehow connected with a particular person. And we are wise to be extremely cautious. We have been burned too many times, haven’t we? There have been too many people claiming to have God’s word, too many people looking for money, too many charlatans. There’s more visions and messages from God flying around Christian TV and radio than anyone could count. There are all sorts of people adamantly saying “God told me this or that.”

In every century, including this one, there have been “prophets” who have been “told by God” the exact timing of the second coming and the exact time Christians should run hide in the hills. They’ve all been dead wrong.

When we hear the words “God told me to say…,” we would be very wise to challenge. To pray. To test. To be diligent in trying to discern when God is speaking. That’s exactly right. This would help us with prophets, and all kinds of other leaders. Beware the ones that put themselves forward too readily, that have too many answers, that want to always talk about themselves and their accomplishments, that volunteer only for leadership positions, that are drawn to power…we need to be cautious.

But. Just know this: that throughout history, God has chosen to use people. Always imperfect and usually quite reluctant people like Jeremiah. Often people who go against the grain, who might look different or sound different. And we must listen to each one: could God be speaking through them? Is this a message God would want us to hear? You might be surprised to know how many times people tell me that God has a message for me, or for the church. I get emails from people I’ve never heard of. I get anonymous letters. I get angry people I’ve never seen before, shouting. I want to be discerning. But I never want to be dismissive. Because I don’t think someone like Jeremiah would have appeared too conventional, either, yet he was called to speak God’s Word.

2. The message of Jeremiah. Jeremiah prophesied for about 40 years. Over those 40 years, violent changes took place in the Middle East. While Israel enjoyed a period of reasonable stability and some independence when Jeremiah first started his ministry, that quickly changed. At best, Israel was a minor player on a stage full of famous actors. Assyria, Egypt and Babylon were all major powers who not only wanted to control as much land as they could, but each also wanted a buffer between themselves and the others. Israel was the buffer.

When Jeremiah started his career as a prophet, Assyria was on top. Over the next years, Assyria fell out of power and Egypt momentarily was in control. But it was Bablyon who seized much of the region around 605, under their King Nebuchadnezzar. Israel was forced to pay tribute. Under the leadership of several different kings, Israel continually tried to play one power off against another, always looking for a return to independence.

Jeremiah’s message during all of this turmoil never changed. It boiled down to this:

“Do not revolt. Accept the fact that God is using these other countries, particularly Babylon, to punish Israel for its unfaithfulness and move it towards his purpose.”

Over the course of years, Jeremiah moves from pleading to anger, from poetry to prose, from reason to emotion, but the message never varies:

“Don’t stand against Babylon, God has chosen to use them for a purpose.”

Now, one of the fascinating parts of Jeremiah is that he was very well-versed on the political realities of his day. There is just no doubt that he understood all of the strategizing and political nuances. He could have been a political commentator. But in the end, Jeremiah would always come back to this:

A purely political analysis for this situation is not enough. There is a spiritual one which is far more important.

In the end, Jeremiah says, Jerusalem will be ultimately be dismantled by God’s will (not Babylon’s). The problem is not external, it is internal. It is not about Babylon, it is about Israel’s unfaithfulness. It is not even about the deeds of Israel but about its heart.

Somehow, Israel seemed to feel that because of its identity as God’s people, they could live complacently, believing that God would guard and protect them no matter how they lived.

Jeremiah’s message was first to say “God is going to pluck up and pull down, destroy and overthrow.” Those verbs are all in verse 10. It was a difficult word. It challenged the core idea of Israel as God’s favorite. And how was it received? Verse 18 & 19 tell us that kings, princes, priests, and the people of the land all stood up to argue against Jeremiah. This couldn’t be. God wouldn’t do that. You’re wrong, Jeremiah.

Listen to those terms: pluck up, pull down, destroy and overthrow. They appear over and over in Jeremiah: here, chapters 18, 24, 31, 42, 45. What is God’s intention for Israel?

• To pluck it up like a plant that has taken root.
• To pull it down like a fully constructed building.
• To destroy it like an army rolling through a city.
• To overthrow it like a kingdom in revolt.

Jeremiah is going to stretch us with how big we think God is. We hate the idea that God could be involved in any of that. That God would use something terrible…to turn people back to himself.

How would we react if the word of God came to us that said “you are headed for disaster?” Would it change how we lived? Does God care about people or nations who over and over again refuse to follow? Refuse to live rightly? Jeremiah would say “yes.”

The idea that God might use other nations, wars, disasters to turn people off of a path doesn’t sit so well with us. Especially not if we apply that thought to individuals, as we are so prone to do in 21st century America.

If I told one of you that the reason you lost your job was that God wanted to get your attention…you might tell me I was an amazingly insensitive pastor, maybe a bad theologian and quite possibly that we must believe in different gods. God would never do that, you would say.

And it’s absolutely true that every time something bad happens, we can’t attach a cause-and-effect reason to it. If we do, we end up back in the place of telling someone who is sick that it was caused by their sin. That’s absolutely not right. But. Would God never use difficult circumstances towards a purpose? Really? This idea that God would pluck up, pull down, destroy, overthrow a people, even his own people…doesn’t sit easily. I think that’s okay. I think we may be far too comfortable in how we think God must act.

And if Israel had objected to this treatment, I wonder if Jeremiah would have said “But for the last 20 years, I have been shouting at you, pleading with you to change. God has done a hundred different things to try to get your attention…yet you would not listen. You’ve lived your own way, a way which incidentally is filled with self-focus and idolatry. What did you expect God to do?”

3) Response. So let’s suppose for just a second that we hear the word of God, and understand the message. What do we do? In Jeremiah’s case, the people refused to believe that God was that big. I wonder if we are willing to hear God speak into our lives. Are we really? Or are we just living pretty much however we want. We don’t like hard things, we don’t like challenges to how we live.

I am now trying to process the deeper things of my trip to Kenya in August. Trying to figure out what I really learned, what the Lord might be telling me. Having lived for most of a week with no electricity and just enough food, having been with people who are barely eking out an existence materially, and then to come back to our culture of super overabundance. There is a voice in me saying “Are you living well? Are you living right?” And though I could easily just lose myself in this lifestyle again, I wonder if that is not God’s voice saying “There’s some things in your life we need to uproot, or tear down.”

You know, two weekends from now, the Bethany Men’s Retreat will take place. One of my favorite times. Lots of fun. This year our topic for conversation is: “Taking Every Thought Captive for Christ: the rewards and struggles of pursuing sexual purity.”

We’ll be talking about temptation.
About actions and about thought life.
About pornography.

Now, I know that some of you men might think “why would we be talking about this on a church retreat? It’s awkward, uncomfortable.” The bottom line is, it is a huge issue for our culture, and for the church. It is ruining marriages and families, it is pulling men away from God. My experience is this: it’s an issue for most men. Some studies recently indicate sexual temptation and internet pornography may affect over 80% of men in the U.S.. It’s something that needs to be uprooted and torn down.

If we are going to read Jeremiah, we are going to have to come to grips with what he says. And the first four verbs of his message are negative: pluck up, pull down, destroy, overthrow.

But thank God those are not the only words from God through Jeremiah. Disaster actually strikes Jerusalem in 587 BC, and Babylon’s siege is successful. The temple is destroyed, the Davidic monarchy is broken and many are carried off into exile, so the two symbols of Israel’s special identity are lost…it is very dark.

There is a hopelessness that settles over the people. But Jeremiah has two other verbs: build and plant. Darkness and destruction are not the final words. God is even bigger than that. It’s the extreme tension of Jeremiah. God does not leave when Babylon comes in. In fact, out of the sheer darkness …comes the words of hope. Build and plant.

“Just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord.”

The old city will be dismantled, but a new community will be raised up. God’s people are down, but not out. The darkness did not mean God abandoned his people. Yes, there was destruction. And yes, there will be a new raising up.

Now, these words: “destroy” and “raise up” are not used only in Jeremiah. They can be found in the New Testament as well. What in fact is promised in Jeremiah, - a new covenant, new hearts, new community…comes through the gospel.

In John, when Jesus has thrown the money changers out of the temple and he is challenged to show a sign to ascertain his identity. He says “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Destroy, raise up. They thought he was talking about the building. But, Jesus was talking about his body, being destroyed, and then raised from the dead. Out of a wreck even greater than the destruction of Jerusalem - the death of God’s Son - new life comes. Resurrection life. Life that is more powerful than death. So it turns out that Israel’s “defining moment” is not actually the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, but the raising of Christ.

If we are going to carry on a conversation with Jeremiah, there must be room for some awkward questions. Some new thoughts. Some uneasy tensions. But in this is our hope, friends. What Jesus’ life, death and resurrection says is: the hope…is stronger than the darkness. Let us pray.