SERMON
NOTES

Focus: We then learn from Jeremiah's call and life that God wants us to stretch. And he does that by challenging us to go - and therefore grow - outside what we feel comfortable. Because that is where we experience God the most.


Introduction

• Imagine you are living in a much smaller country. There is a new world order. One of the superpowers has fallen; there are rumors of a new one rising
• Your own head of state is considered good: he is fair, just, but a little reckless. You wish he wouldn’t shoot his mouth off and get your country in the crosshairs of the ruler of this new superpower
• However, there is abuse of political power among those whom the head of state may not know about
• There is a seeming revival in the church. Yet there is division due to factions
• There is abuse of religious power so that the truth is stifled and a self-serving message is on the rise
• History seems to have taught us nothing. We keep repeating it. Sometimes, we even try to rewrite it to suit our own pet stories [The Holocaust never happened?? Slavery wasn’t as terrible as was portrayed??]
• Imagine yourself as a late teen – maybe twenties. You have your own baggage. You belong to a family that used to be respected but has fallen from favor and even pushed out of all known circles

Would you say that minding your own business is the best course of action?
So what – with what’s happening to the country?
So what – with what’s happening to the Church?
(After all, if it gets too much for me, I’ll find some other place, some other church, not bother at all!

What if then God invades your world?

I’m sure some of you are thinking I’m giving a kind of commentary on our current times. And that’s what I love about the Bible: It speaks with dazzling clarity from the past to the present.

It was about 627 or 626 BC. Jeremiah belonged to the family of the Priest Abiathar, who served King David. Abiathar made some wrong choices in loyalty and was banished to the small town of Anathoth. Years later, that’s where the young Jeremiah was serving as a priest.

On the political scene, the superpower Assyria, which had conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel (also called Ephraim) and relocated its people, was now in decline. Its last, weak king would soon be conquered by a newly rising superpower – Babylon. On the home front, in Judah, the much smaller Southern Kingdom, was being ruled by a young, godly king, Josiah. He’d set several reforms in place, but not all of them were reaching the grassroots level. There was still abuse of power – religious, political, and social.

And that’s when God invades this young man, minding his own business!!
When do you really grow?

It is when God “invades” your “private space” and pulls you out of your comfort zone!
God did this by calling Jeremiah and then commissioning him. It was up to Jeremiah to respond.

Only then will you discover:

• It wasn’t just to change your life and your life situation
• It wasn’t just to meet any particular present need – whether in your life, or your surroundings
• It wasn’t just a divine response to an unforeseen crisis, and you were the solution

BUT
God was implementing a plan he’s long thought of, and has just come to the part where you come in

• God’s Choosing
• I knew you

It was God’s act of personal commitment to an intimate relationship with Jeremiah before he was conceived. It speaks of his personal hand in forming and choosing, which obviously had nothing to do with any worthiness and pride. That’s how grace works. God determines the part that Jeremiah (and us) play in history. Paul would say to the Corinthians (1:27-29):
“God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”
How does your perspective of God, and of yourself, change when you know that he knew you and chose you even before you were conceived; in fact, he had a hand in forming you in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-14)?

• I set you apart
• The idea is of separating Jeremiah to be a Holy vessel (consecrating) for God’s purposes. This setting apart also has its consequences among his own family and his community, who would “set him apart (=aside).” That is the “cost” of consecration, of being made holy.

Do you know why God has specifically “set you – yes you – apart” for himself and what he wants done?

• I appointed you
• The turn of phrase is interesting. It wasn’t so much that God gives the job to Jeremiah; it is more like God gives Jeremiah to the job! In Jeremiah’s case, he was given to the task of being a prophet to the nations. What this means is that usually when a task is given to us, it is up to us to make (of fulfill) the task, what it is. When God gives us to the task, the task makes us what we are (or become).

How have the task(s) that God has given you to (not the tasks he gave to you) changed you, formed you, as he wants to?

• God’s Commissioning
• Being his witness

Jeremiah had no choice of his audience, and neither could he choose his message. In a world/culture where we’d like to choose the people that we think we’d be most effective with (and would best receive us), God sends Jeremiah with an unlimited mission – “to everyone I send you to.” He is also not allowed to choose the message he would give; it was an unlimited message: “say whatever I command you.” In other words, there would be no room for Jeremiah to be separated from God and his message.
How committed are you to God and his message that, because of your close proximity to him, you are certain of those he sends you to, and what he wants to communicate through you?

 

• Being his instrument

God touches Jeremiah’s mouth – a promise that he would it would be God who would do the work (in Jeremiah’s case, giving his word of prophecy). Jeremiah would be God’s instrument of reconstruction and cultivation, What this meant was that Jeremiah would be empowered to do  both the taking apart of the un-godly, and the putting together of what is Godly.

• In 1 John 2:27 the apostle writes: “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real…”
• How has God’s anointing of you through the giving of his Holy Spirit convinced you that you are indeed an instrument in his hand for the purpose of his reconstructing work?

• Being more than just “you”
  • Jeremiah objects, using his inability – his lack of skill – to speak. He also says that in a world of respectable older people, he was too young. Like Jeremiah we too are fearful, feel inadequate, and shrink back when God calls us to respond to him and leave our comfort zones. But our refusal to say “yes” to God is not really an indication of our verdict on ourselves. It ends up being our verdict on God, or rather, who we believe God to be:
  • If he really knew me, he wouldn’t choose me; I’m not worthy, I’m not able
  • The task is too big, even God cannot help me get it done
  • I know I will fail, and the world will laugh at me, and God will give up on me, the Loser

God’s promise is, “do not fear, just trust me and leave your comfort zone, and I will rescue you”
This year, will I say “yes” to God, leave my comfort zone, and Live the God-sized Life