You know how the New York Times always prints a little box inside the front of their paper with corrections from stuff they messed up in the previous edition…misspelled names or omitted details? Well, I feel like that this morning. A few weeks ago, when we started reading the book of Jeremiah, I gave you a little Bible trivia and said that Jeremiah was the longest book in the Bible in terms of the number of words, not chapters. This morning I have to tell you that I was wrong about that. I got a little carried away. Jeremiah is the longest of the prophets…
but is not longer than the Psalms in terms of sheer words.

Now, you might ask, “how did you discover your error, Dan?” Well, I didn’t. A good friend of mine and Bethany member did, and in fact informed me that, after extensive research, Jeremiah beats Ezekiel by 3,253 words and that Jeremiah beat Isaiah 42,654 to 37,036. But none of them can touch the Psalms. I can only hope my friend didn’t miss any work days counting up those words! So I stand corrected.

We’ve called our series on Jeremiah. “Tearing Down, Building Up.” You’ll notice that we’re not yet to the “Building Up” part. At the beginning of the 6th century BC, Jeremiah still is warning the people of Israel that the threat from the north
(Babylon) will soon be upon them, and continues telling them why they will eventually be overtaken (587 BC): It’s because of their own unfaithfulness to God.

This makes many of us uncomfortable, as I’m sure it did Jeremiah’s listeners. After all, if God is a god of grace and forgiveness, then what’s the problem? Just ask God to forgive us and be done with it. Unfortunately, the people of Israel don’t seem to be remotely close to asking for God’s forgiveness. Nor does it seem that the forgiveness of God removes all the consequences of sin. It restores people to relationship with God, but does not always erase the effects of human decisions.

If I could summarize chapters 4-5-6 of Jeremiah in a few words, they would have to be the words that the voice of God uses to describe his people: wicked hearted, evil scheming, rebellious, foolish, not understanding, skilled in doing evil and not knowing how to do good, wealthy/sleak/fat, lacking even one just person, refusing to take correction, hard-faced, adulterers, speakers of falsehood, unjust, violent and people with closed ears.

Ouch. Those are just from chapters 4, 5 & 6. Ouch. What an amazing thing, as Margie emphasized last week, that through all of that, God’s #1 desire, his will, his longing is still…for his people to return to him.

Read Jeremiah 6:16-20

As we sit with God’s word, let me just plant one basic thought with you. I hope it makes us uncomfortable this morning. God’s persistent word through Jeremiah to Israel…is that they should not oppose the military might of Babylon which is on the way. To allow themselves to fall under the political control of a different country. Why? Because it seems that there are more important things to God than the political supremacy and autonomy of his people. Things like the state of their hearts.

Until we moved from Seattle to New Jersey in 1993, I had never experienced a traffic circle (I don’t mean these puny neighborhood circles in Seattle, but real traffic circles).

Having survived the confusion of turnpikes in the east, I thought I was read for anything. But when we hit New Jersey, there I was driving down a busy road much like Aurora (99), minding my own business, when up ahead of me loomed some kind of obstruction. The road suddenly veered to the right and then back to the left. Somewhere between 4-6 roads were all converging at exactly the same spot…a traffic circle.

Once you entered into the traffic circle, you felt like a spider being sucked down a draining bathtub. You were trapped against your will, driving around and around and around…trying to both read the small signs for each of the roads leading out of the circle, and trying not to be hit by the other cars.

I remember having several marital disputes with me driving and Anne reading the signs and saying to me “that one!” and pointing, and me saying “Which one? There are three different roads!” By then we’d missed it. So we’d go around again. And again. But the traffic circles were important. And in fact, the choice you ended up making had a lot to do with whether you would reach your destination.

“Stand at the crossroads.”

The crossroads was the traffic circle of Biblical times. For someone on foot or riding a donkey, there were just a few major roads and when you approached the convergence of a couple of them, it was quite an event. Discerning which was the right one to take was very important.

A crossroads was exactly what it sounds like. Webster’s calls it “a place where roads intersect.” Of course. But interestingly, a second definition is this: “a point at which a vital decision must be made.”

“A point at which a vital decision must be made.” For this prophet Jeremiah, the decision to be made is very clear: “Will you follow after God on God’s terms…or not?”

In this case, God’s terms didn’t seem so great: being conquered by another country.

It is the very question that God throws our way, is it not? Not just “Will you follow after Me?” but “Will you follow after Me…on My terms?” Big difference. It’s easy for us to say “Yes, Lord, I’ll follow after you…on my terms.” And by the way, here’s my terms, God. Given those things, I'll follow -

• You don’t embarrass me.
• You answer my prayers.
• I have meaningful employment.
• No one close to me gets sick.
• You provide a spouse, and a faithful spouse.
• I have children.
• I get to make it to an enjoyable retirement.

We seem to have a lot of people right now at Bethany encountering major crossroads. Facing life threatening illnesses, or the death of a spouse. Facing possible moves, facing difficult spots in marriages, facing financial problems. And even if you’re not in one of those places, I think we all consistently face situations that challenge us to say “Yes, I’ll follow after You…on Your terms.”

The crossroads can be a pretty confusing place. All sorts of options, and sometimes more than one of the roads look like the right one. Now, sometimes we know exactly which road to take and we’re reluctant to do it. But not always. Sometimes we really are caught in the traffic circle, we really are at a crossroads and don’t know which way to go. In that case, Jeremiah provides a pretty straight forward strategy:

1. Stand
2. Look
3. Ask.

Stand at the crossroads. The first thing Jeremiah says is “just stop for a minute.” In Jeremiah’s day, it meant stop holding meetings to build alliances, stop fortifying your walls of defense, just stop for a minute. Stand still.

Easy for him to say. He doesn’t live in 21st century America, does he? He doesn’t live in the middle of the city that goes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He doesn’t live in the middle of demanding jobs where bosses expect you to put work above everything else in your life. He doesn’t live in the place where the routine question, “How have you been?” is routinely answered “Busy. I’m just so busy.”

We are just so busy. So busy. We’re shooting up these arrow prayers that sound like

“Lord, this-doesn’t-seem right-that-my-tongue-is-hanging-out-all-the-time, -and-I-wonder-if-I’m-missing-some -of-what-you-have-for-me-in-my-life-and-my-pastor-said-to-pray-about-it-so-here’s-my-prayer-God-what-should-I-do, which-road-should-I-take?-there-I-said-it, -I-prayed-it- and-God-I’ve-got-to run-out-the-door-right-now-to-a-couple-things-but-I’ll-be-back-at-some-point-to-hear-what thoughts…you…might…have.”

Stand. It might be the most counter-cultural thing that Christians in our position could do to testify to our world that there is another way. To intentionally stand will mean to repeatedly saying “no” to being so busy, and to quit taking pride in it.

In August when I was in Western Kenya for a week, I learned something about this. Every evening after the sun went down on Lake Victoria, it was instantly dark, and most homes and roads had no electricity.

In the house of Lillian and Ezekiel our hosts, as soon as night fell, they lit a couple of kerosene lanterns and some candles and we all sat in the living room. We ate a simple meal together. We talked, told stories, looked at pictures, laughed and played with the children. Neighbors sometimes came over to visit. Then we would thank God for the day, pray for the needs we had encountered and go to sleep.

Very low tech, unproductive and inefficient. They practice it every single night. We have to be so intentional, to work so hard at saying “no” to all sorts of things to get any time like that. Just to merely be together. Just to be alone with God. Stand at the crossroads. Standing can keep us away from the sin of busyness.

"Stand at the crossroads…and look,” says Jeremiah. Look at the possibilities. Look at the various ways of life open to you. There are a number of roads to go down. And usually there’s a lot of traffic going down one or two of them, and the default is to just go with the flow. We may not even be positive where it’s going, but there’s so many people taking the road, how could they all be wrong? Let’s take the road most traveled.

Last weekend about 60 men from Bethany were up at Warm Beach (which is always an interesting place, since it is neither warm nor does it have a beach!). Our topic was “pursuing sexual purity.” Over the course of the weekend we talked about a lot of things involving our thought life, and our actions. Whether single or married, things that would honor the women around us, things that would honor our spouses.

One of the phrases we talked about was “not settling for okay.” Don’t settle for “I guess I’m doing okay compared to others,” or “I’m in a marriage that’s sort of okay and that’s the way it is.” Pleasing God is not “how am I doing relative to others?” but “Lord, how can I honor you?” The road marked “okay” is a very popular one, not just in sexuality but in many areas. Standing at the crossroads and look-ing for God’s direction is a road far less traveled. It requires a willingness to go against the grain. Looking can keep us away from the sin of complacency.

“Stand at the crossroads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it.” Asking implies two things:

First, the recognition that we are not alone…there are others with us in Christ’s community.

Second, that we work against the desire to be independent.

We need companions, we need guides and mentors. CS Lewis once said “Think of me as a fellow patient in the same hospital who, having been admitted a little earlier, could give some advice.”

Ask. Sounds simple, but it isn’t. It goes against everything we have been brought up with: be independent and self-reliant, don’t ask for help it’s a sign of weakness, I’ll do it my way. The God Way is a different way.

I have a friend who had a huge decision staring at him. He asked his homegroup to pray on his behalf and give him feedback. They did, unanimously feeling that the move he was contemplating was not what God would have for him. He asked a mentor in his life what he should be thinking about, who clearly told him the same thing as the homegroup. But he made a different decision. You see, he wasn’t really asking. He had already made up his mind, and just wanted a rubberstamp.

Ask where the good way lies. I’m wondering who there is in your life that you ask? Who will you let in on a level beneath “thanks for your input, I’ll take that into consideration?” Is there some mentor, some brother or sister in Christ, some small group that you can ask…and mean it? That you can trust to give you not only their best advice, but what they hear as they pray over you? It’s not a trust that should be lightly given. But asking can keep us out of this sin of independence.

“Ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it.” The ancient paths are the ones that Israel once took to walk closely with God. The ancient covenant, the relationship whereby God poured his love out on them, and they worshipped him with all they had. “Walk in these paths,” Jeremiah says.

But you heard Israel’s responses:

• We will not walk in it
• We will not listen to your words.
• We will reject your teaching.

Now, notice that Israel never said that it quit believing in God. Only that they would live with God on their own terms. Their own terms included some things that looked pretty good: bringing to God expensive perfumes and imported sweets, burnt offerings and sacrifices. But apparently Israel could give those things safely, out of abundance and without obedience. And God was after something entirely different. He was after covenant, He was after their hearts, minds and souls, He was after all of them.

Is it possible that we are bringing to God those things we want to bring, but they have little correlation to what He wants? Even good things? Is it possible that we are presenting balanced lives to God, when he asks for a radical following? Is it possible that we are giving a little time to this, to this, to this, to church activities in here…when God is asking how we are being salt and light out there?

Let me back up to where we started. Through Jeremiah, God told his people that they would be overrun by Babylon for a reason. It seems that there were more important things to God than the political supremacy and autonomy of his people. Things like the state of their hearts.

We are, I believe, in a dangerous place in our country. For a long, long time we have equated the material prosperity and influence of our nation with the special favor of God. Many have even felt that America is the “new Israel,” a new “chosen people” whom God has blessed and who will always have God’s special protection.

What if a prophet rose up today and said “there were more important things to God than your political supremacy and autonomy…things like the state of your hearts.” I suspect that prophet would be shouted down.

What if someone dared to question things we hold near and dear to our hearts, in fact so near and dear that we begin to think they are part of the gospel? What if someone said:

You’ve gone overboard on your individual rights.

or

You people put way, way too much emphasis on education and which schools your children get into…you need to spend time with them, shape them, know them

What if someone said

It’s time you people quit equating political power with God, and considered that everything Jesus did was out of servanthood and powerless-ness.

What if someone said we are picking the wrong roads to walk down?

Jeremiah says “Walk in the good way…and you will find rest for your souls.”

Jesus said “If you are weary, carrying heavy burdens, come to me, take my yoke upon you…and learn from me…and you will find rest for your souls.” Same words.

If you are struggling at the crossroads, confused. Jesus says “take my way.” The Jesus Way often looks different than the others. It’s the one sometimes marked by pain and ostracism. It’s the one in which we are repeatedly called back to knowing God personally. Not knowing about Him, but knowing Him. The Jesus way goes not just through the crossroads, but through the cross.

Jesus was crucified at a place called Golgotha. It seems the Romans chose the place so that the crucifixions there might be seen by many people from the roads, and deter them from opposing the ways of power. It was a crossroads. Jesus knew for his whole ministry that he would end up there. Yet he went anyway. He came to his vital decision point and said “yes” to God on behalf of all people. Our vital decision point comes once, and it comes many times. Will we walk with Jesus? Or choose one of the other ways? Let us pray.