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Our Next Steps: Jeremiah 1
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Fear has one punchline. God has a thousand stories in mind that begin right here in this room. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad you're here and we hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 1:We wanna welcome you one more time today to our third birthday party here at commons. It's pretty exciting for you to have us here or for you to be here with us on our third birthday. We are running four services across the day and we are on the verge of adding a second parish in a second neighborhood later this year. And so it's a lot to celebrate. Lots going on.
Speaker 1:We're excited. God has been incredibly gracious to us, and so have each of you. And so we wanna celebrate today with God and with each other. We wanna have a great time, even as we begin to orient ourselves around where we believe God is calling us to with our next steps. And so there's lots happening around the church.
Speaker 1:Obviously, you've seen that as you come in. There's lots as you go as well. We hope you have a fun time and join in and be part of the party with us. Now that said, my name is Jeremy. I'm part of the team here.
Speaker 1:And if you and I haven't had a chance to meet yet, then please stop by and say hi after the service. I'd love to connect, welcome you to Commons, maybe hear a little bit of your story as well. And hopefully, whether you are new or not, you have been able to grab a copy of our 02/1718 journal project. They're in the pews in front of you. They were on the chairs in the gym as well, And we do have lots more copies available at the connection center before you leave.
Speaker 1:Because every year, we put together this journal that walks us through the coming season. We want you to be able to see where we're coming from as a community and where we're going as a church. And we want you to see the intentionality behind how we've planned and prepared for this year together. And so if you flip through your journal, you'll see that we are gonna spend some time in the Old Testament this fall as we look at the story of Jacob. We'll be focusing on the words of Jesus coming out of the winter in a series called One Last Thing and we'll be picking up the letter to the Romans again in the spring as we continue working our way through that text.
Speaker 1:And then of course in between all that, we'll be walking through the Christian calendar together and we'll be finding moments to address some of those more personal topics like loneliness that seem to creep into our lives from time to time. And I think this is going to be a really good, healthy, robust year for us. And one of the things that we do every year as we begin the season together here at Commons is to start the fall with a short series that helps to recalibrate us around some of the big ideas that are at the heart of our community. And so that's where we wanna begin. We talk here about being intellectually honest and facing into the very real difficulties of bringing an ancient text like the bible into conversation with our modern world.
Speaker 1:We talk about being spiritually passionate that we want to engage not just our heads but also our hearts and our emotions and all of that hard to quantify spiritual component of what it means to be human with our faith journey. And then finally, we talk about wanting to keep Jesus at the center, Both of our theology, but also our perspective on who God is. Because for us, as followers of Christ first, we realize that God has always looked like Jesus even when the human story didn't fully understand that. So that's the lens, and that's the Jesus focus at how we approach and understand, how we interpret everything that we engage with in the scriptures as a community. And yet this year, even as we reset around these values, we also have some exciting new adventures to prepare for.
Speaker 1:Next month, our Inglewood core team actually begins meeting on Sunday mornings in Inglewood to prepare for the launch of the next Commons Church as we begin imagining what these values of Commons look like when they are transplanted into a new neighborhood. And so for these first three weeks of the season together, we wanna recalibrate as always, but we also want to look forward into what that means for us to be truly contextual. We wanna think about place together. We wanna think about neighborhood. I wanna talk about what it means for our faith journey to impact the space that we occupy and the specific places that we live as human beings.
Speaker 1:Now to do that, we're gonna spend some time in what could seem like a strange text to begin a celebratory season together because we are going to work our way toward the end of the book of Jeremiah. A frankly sad and depressing tale about a sad and depressing prophet named Jeremy. And yet, in there, I think there are some really profound lessons about what it means to be where you are. And to occupy that space in a healthy way, and to bring blessing to wherever you happen to be. And so that's where we're gonna go.
Speaker 1:We're gonna move towards Jeremiah 29. We're gonna focus our energy there for a couple weeks. And I promise I will not focus on Jeremiah twenty nine eleven if that happens to be the only verse that you've ever read in this book. But today, we wanna start at the start. And to do that, we need a little background to this prophet named Jeremiah.
Speaker 1:However, before that, let's pray. Gracious God, we come today thankful for all the ways that you have stepped into our story. To teach us, to guide us, to model for us what it means to reach out for the divine, and to do that from here in the space that we occupy. Help us to pray as you have taught us to, to come and to speak with you regularly and openly and honestly. Lord, as we do, we ask that you would help us to see our lives as part of a much larger tale that is unfolding.
Speaker 1:One where you are active and present. Where you are as close as the breath on our lips. One where you are speaking your creativity in and through each of us all the time. Would you help us to be captured by the significance you invest in neighbors and neighborhoods, in friends and local expressions of good life. Would you help us to understand the beauty that you invest in work and career and contribution to the common good.
Speaker 1:Would you help us to grasp the value that you see in roots, in settling down and digging into relationships and investing for the long term and the good of those who are near us. Lord, would you help us to believe that you have an incredibly large imagination even for the smallest moments of our lives. And as we become aware of that imagination, might we become better citizens here in Calgary, but also in your kingdom. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Okay. Over these opening couple weeks together, I wanna make our way toward the end of Jeremiah, as I said, where God begins to talk about and lay out his vision for the significance of local life. God talks about the sacredness of planting gardens and building houses. The significance of sending down roots and investing in neighbors, and this is where God wants to lead Jeremiah toward. However, to get there, we need to spend a little time today getting to know this person, Jeremiah.
Speaker 1:And I promise I did not just choose this character because of his name, although that certainly is a nice bonus, let's be honest. Instead, I chose this section because I think the book's focus on neighborhood can be really compelling for us as we begin to imagine thinking about both Kensington and Inglewood in the future. However, that said, before you can dream big dreams, you have to believe in what you have to offer. And that's actually where the story starts for Jeremiah. So, chapter one starting in verse four.
Speaker 1:Jeremiah writes, the word of the Lord came to me. And this is a big start right here. I mean, anyone who thinks that something is holy and sacred as the word of the Lord has come to them must have some big ideas about themselves. And in fact, that word of the Lord says to Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart.
Speaker 1:I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Now, that is some pretty big stuff. And I guess if God is going to speak to you directly, you want it to be big, you want it to be meaningful. I mean, if the word of the Lord came to me and said, hey, let's go get some pizza. And that's not really the stuff of prophetic literature.
Speaker 1:It doesn't really have that kind of staying power that makes people read about you centuries after you're gone. Yet, incredibly, Jeremiah responds to this inglorious encounter by saying, alas sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak for I am too young. Now, we're gonna look at this more detail here in a moment. But before we go anywhere, I wanna say this, God, I feel you here. Because you see my son has recently turned four.
Speaker 1:And we had a big party. It was a lot of fun. However, the whole time I kept thinking that really this should have been a celebration of how well Rachel and I have done at keeping him alive all this time. Truth be told, we deserve cupcakes, not him. Regardless, he is at that point where in life he is like Schrodinger's age when it comes to important tasks.
Speaker 1:If he doesn't want to do it, it's all, I'm too little. I need help. You do it for me. And then five seconds later when he wants to do it himself, it's all, I'm a big boy. I can do it myself.
Speaker 1:You go over there. I hear that a lot in my house. Now, of course, the relationship between those two categories seems to be completely opaque, at least to me. Somehow, he is old enough to operate an iPad all by himself and doesn't need any help finding his favorite shows on Netflix. And yet, he can't carry his favorite blanket upstairs because he's quote, too little.
Speaker 1:He can obviously operate my power tools without the imposition of supervision. And yet, he is much too young to walk all the way to the coffee shop two blocks away because quote, his legs are too small. By the way, I'm quite sure he got that from his mother. And also, speaking of outside steps here, this is off topic, but last week, I posted on Facebook about how my son was pretending to be a giant, and he was stomping around the house counting, fee, five, four, six. And I thought that was a little weird and kind of funny, And so I saved it in my ongoing catalog of amusing moments on Facebook.
Speaker 1:However, this week, Eaton and I were talking and he says to me, something about how giants don't count. I was like, what do you mean? Why do you say that? He says, because they say, fee five foe. And what I realized is, he wasn't saying fee five foe six.
Speaker 1:He was saying, three five four six. And I guess he thought giants just don't know how to count properly and they get their numbers mixed up. And phum doesn't make any sense anyway. So I'll just throw that one out and I'll put a six in there instead, which I thought was even more hilarious and made the whole thing that much better. Anyway, point is, my brief experience of parenting has given me a platform to identify with God in this story.
Speaker 1:Jeremiah, my son, I have plans for you, but dad, I'm too little. And we can laugh and joke and notice how silly it is for Jeremiah to respond to the God of the universe this way. This is actually a really important part of the story. You see, in the opening three verses of this book, Jeremiah tells us that God began speaking to him during the thirteenth year of king Josiah's reign, and God kept talking to him all the way up until the eleventh year of Zedekiah. That's when Jeremiah's people went into exile in Babylon.
Speaker 1:And what that means is that Jeremiah is hearing from God. He's a prophet to the nation during an incredibly turbulent period. This summer, we talked about David. And a couple points in there, we hinted at the long history of the Israelite kingdom. See David's son, Solomon, takes over, but after he is gone, the kingdom splits into two.
Speaker 1:And eventually, the northern kingdom called Israel is conquered by an empire called Assyria. And the southern kingdom called Judah negotiates a surrender with Assyria, and they become a vassal state. Later, they break away and they become independent again. Then they become a vassal of Egypt and then a vassal of Babylon. And then finally, under Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians decide to completely conquer Judah and exile the people.
Speaker 1:Well, Jeremiah lives and prophesies during all of that time. That's what those first three verses of this book are clueing us into. And so Jeremiah has this forty year career as a prophet where he is basically told to tell the people over and over and over again Babylon is coming. We're gonna lose the war. Get ready for exile.
Speaker 1:Jeremy is not the kind of guy you want to invite over for dinner. He's kind of a downer. And so no wonder he pulls out whatever excuse he can find when God taps him on the shoulder and says, hey, Jeremy, I got some big plans for us. The thing is, most of us come to realize through the course of our lives that the things worth doing rarely come to us in times of calm. Now, don't misunderstand me here.
Speaker 1:I think we hear best. I think we discern God's leading the best in times of internal calm. But opportunity, vision, and mission, and purpose, and calling, and the broad imagination of God, oftentimes those moments appear in seasons when things are turbulent. This is why there is something incredibly unique about the people around us who can respond to complex difficult situations, but they can do it. They can step into chaotic space from a place of internal peace.
Speaker 1:There's something very powerful about knowing who you are and where you stand when everything else is blowing out of control around you. And that does not mean that you have all the answers. In fact, sometimes all it means is that you know what answers are worth fighting for. But what fascinates me here about Jeremiah is how he responds to God. Because I have always wanted to find enough internal calm that I could hear God's voice this way.
Speaker 1:Right? The text says that the word of the Lord came to him. And that word is the word devar in Hebrew. It literally just means word. And so it's not necessarily a speech or an audible voice.
Speaker 1:The idea is simply here that somehow Jeremiah knew what God wanted him to know. And I actually take some comfort in that. I have never heard God speak. But the scriptures don't even try to describe for us what it means to hear the word of God. Is that in your head?
Speaker 1:Is it in your heart? Or your gut? Or your spirit? Maybe all of the above? Or maybe even none?
Speaker 1:But there is a sense of knowing that we can experience. And this is what the Lord says. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as prophet to the nations.
Speaker 1:Now, if you've read the Psalms, you may have a sense that this sounds familiar. In fact, as I mentioned already, we spent the summer with David and two years ago we spent the summer with the Psalms and this is a reference to a Psalm of David. In fact, it's a very famous Psalm. It's Psalm one thirty nine. There, David says to God, you created my innermost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb.
Speaker 1:And part of what's interesting here is that the whole point of that poem, Psalm one thirty nine, is that David can't hide from God. God knows exactly who he is. God knows exactly what he's done. God knows exactly what David is capable of. And when you know that, it's almost as if God has anticipated Jeremiah's response here.
Speaker 1:Perhaps as if he'd actually did knit him together in his mother's womb, perhaps as if he does know him more intimately than he knows himself. And I love that when God speaks to Jeremiah he quotes from David. You see, for a Jewish boy growing up in Judah, the Psalms, particularly the Psalms of David would have been a huge part of Jeremiah's education. And so when God quotes Psalm one thirty nine God knows that Jeremiah knows what he's doing. So realize that when God speaks to you sometimes it will be in the voice of authors and people that you already know.
Speaker 1:Perhaps God likes poetry as much as you and I. But, when God quotes a poem about the futility of running away from God and the vanity of imagining you know yourself better than God, It's sort of ironic when Jeremiah responds and says, alas sovereign God, I do not know how to speak for I am too young. Now, I will admit I am the kind of person who will often respond to any opportunity or any challenge immediately by saying, of course I can handle that, let's go. And that gets me into problems at times. I think I've spent most of my life in over my head.
Speaker 1:And others of us here in the room are more naturally risk averse. I get it. Our default posture will be to respond with more caution and preparation and that's actually good sometimes. But then there are those moments where you know that something divine has spoken to you. Those moments where an opportunity or a challenge or a mission will present itself.
Speaker 1:And whether you ascribe that pull to God or to something else, you have no doubt felt the magnetism of certain causes in your life. And maybe you don't even yet know why, but you know that there's something there. Like when you hold that idea in your mind, there's light in it. And it's sacred even when it terrifies you. It's as if God's self had spoken something into your imagination.
Speaker 1:And please don't think I am only talking about church stuff here. When you are truly captured by something and when it feels like the divine has spoken to you, that is holy. And sometimes when it happens, we have to work very hard to hold on to that moment, to protect it, to guard it, to make sure that no one stomps on that passion no matter how crazy it sounds. But sometimes, we have to watch that we're not the ones who stomp it out too. See, what happens is that you sense that pull and then sometimes there is this certain thing that seems to rise up from somewhere deep and buried inside us.
Speaker 1:And sometimes, no matter how confident you normally are, no matter how convinced of the significance of this moment, no matter how much you truly believe that the creative word of a sovereign Lord has come to you, there is also that voice that says, I don't think so. I mean, it's a good idea and all. Don't get me wrong, but not you. I mean, sure, somebody should do it, but not us. I mean, we're still too small.
Speaker 1:And our legs are too short, and we don't have the education, and even if we did, we weren't meant for the center. And you, you were built to stand in the background and cheer on all those people who do great things. Trust me. You don't have the words for this. Now, sometimes that voice comes from a place of insecurity.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's just fear. And then sometimes it actually is a legitimate lack of experience. I get it. But anytime we react to a challenge with an immediate no, before we even slow down to think or evaluate or respond to the situation, usually that no is coming from a deeply embedded narrative that we've bought into somewhere along the way. So there was this book that came out way back in the nineteen sixties called Psycho Cybernetics.
Speaker 1:And if you ever listen to people like, Tony Robbins, a lot of the ideas there are coming from Maxwell Maltz way back in the sixties. One of the central ideas in this book is that your subconscious, it's like a compass, it's like a servomechanism. And your subconscious doesn't really care about what's good or bad or positive or negative. It just cares about what you put your energy into. And so if you pour energy into negative stories about yourself, your subconscious keeps pulling you back to those stories.
Speaker 1:Now likewise if you focus on positive narratives your subconscious just sort of naturally orients you around that. It's not magic, it's not the universe, it's not some grand secret, this is just how our brains are wired. Which shouldn't be all that surprising if we've read what Paul says to the Philippians when he writes and he says, is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely or admirable, If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, meditate on those things. And so when you consciously choose to focus on what is good and holy, what happens is that your subconscious begins to reorient itself until it starts naturally pulling you back in those healthy directions. This is part of how our spirit is wired.
Speaker 1:But it's also why when you find yourself in a habit of immediately responding to a challenge with, no, I'm too young. Or no, I'm too old. I'm too this. I'm too that. Usually, that no isn't born in that moment.
Speaker 1:The the kind of instinctive not me is the product of a story that you've told yourself a thousand times before. It's your spirit orienting around what it's been fed. So maybe you were in a relationship and it didn't work out or a marriage that ended. And you've been telling yourself since then for years that you're just not relationship material. And you had your chance.
Speaker 1:You blew it. May maybe you tried to switch careers. You tried to start something, and you poured your energy and your resources into that concept, and you put everything on the line for it, and it just didn't work. And you've been telling yourself ever since, you're just not an entrepreneur. And you're a worker bee, a drone, so keep your head down and stop dreaming about big things.
Speaker 1:Maybe somewhere along the line, a teacher told you that you weren't particularly creative, or a friend told you that you weren't an intellectual, or a pastor told you you're not a theologian. And you've been repeating that story to yourself ever since. Because it takes years to create the kind of instinctual no that Jeremiah gives to God here in this moment. You see, the word of the infinitely creative sovereign Lord comes to us in a thousand different ways. But fear is always one note, not me.
Speaker 1:And this is why I think that when the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah it does so with such incredible grace and peace in this story. I mean we are talking about the God of the universe here. And this is the old testament after all. As you might almost expect God to just say, I'm here, you're there, do what I tell you, case closed. As I might say to my son, does it look like I'm negotiating here?
Speaker 1:And yet, that's not what God does here in this moment. What God does is God gently begins to re narrate Jeremiah's life for him. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. Regardless of what else you have taken on and into yourself, I know who you are.
Speaker 1:And there are big things buried in there. Remember, God is quoting from David here. He's saying to Jeremiah, remember the heroes of your youth. That's how I think about you. If you ever needed God to show up and tell you you were a power ranger, this is your scripture.
Speaker 1:And I know that might sound silly, but don't move past it too quickly because sometimes there's something really important about becoming conscious of the fact that God knows you are bigger than you realize. Next, God says, I appointed you. The Hebrew here is actually more like I gifted you to the nations. Understand that God sees your contribution to the world as gift. And even when Jeremiah objects, God doesn't stop.
Speaker 1:God says, do not say I am only a youth. For to all to whom I send you, you shall go and whatever I tell you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you declares the Lord. And here's what I love about this. God doesn't ever try to soft sell us on anything.
Speaker 1:God says, Jeremiah, you are bigger than you think you are. And I've got enormous plans for you, plans that I have imagined since before you were even born. But to get there, you will be in over your head. And you're gonna need help, so I'll be there to rescue you, declares the Lord. See, that is what it means to re narrate our lives in the light of a story that is so much bigger than we dared to imagine.
Speaker 1:And whether we are talking about your dreams as an individual for this new season you're encountering and about what God is speaking to you about right now in this moment, or whether we are talking about our next steps as community where God might be taking us together. All of that begins with the realization that not me is not the story that God wrote for any of us. So whether you want to start a business, or be a better mom, or write a book, or grow as a husband, or launch a new parish on the East Side of town, all of that starts with the willingness to listen to a new narrative. And where we have told ourselves not me, we listen to the voice of God that says, yeah, actually you. Fear has one punch line.
Speaker 1:God has a thousand stories in mind to begin right here in this room. And so as we begin a new season together, my prayer before anything else is that you might listen well for the word of the Lord. And that when it comes to you, because it will, no matter how big or small or crazy or insignificant it may seem to anyone else. When that glimmer of light captures your imagination and you recognize there is something holy and divine here in this idea. That you would hold it and protect it and guard it.
Speaker 1:Make sure no one else stomps it out, but maybe more than that, make sure you're not the one who sits it down and walks away. May you notice the divine and treasure it And trust that that imagination is worth following particularly when it leads you in over your head. Let's pray. God, as we begin our new season together, Both as a church who believes you have big things in store for us and as individuals who are facing into this new fall season with excitement and dread and fear and courage and all kinds of emotions mixed together. We pray that in the midst of all of that tumult, we would see, we would hear your voice speaking to us.
Speaker 1:That as we do, we would begin to grasp that glimmer of light, that sacred imagination that you have placed in the core of our being. That even when it terrifies us, and fear wants us to push it aside and say not me, your courage and your spirit would speak into us to say, actually, this is something we can handle. And if we can't, you will be there to rescue us anyway. God, might we live with passion and excitement, with purpose and calling, with an imagination that you have called us to do incredible things even when they are small and unnoticed. You're a great God.
Speaker 1:And in the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.