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1:1 The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2 to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
4 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” 7 But the LORD said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
declares the LORD.”
9 Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me,
“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
10 See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”
11 And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond1 branch.” 12 Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”
13 The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.” 14 Then the LORD said to me, “Out of the north disaster2 shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15 For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the LORD, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah. 16 And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. 17 But you, dress yourself for work;3 arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. 18 And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you.”
[1] 1:11
[2] 1:14
[3] 1:17
(ESV)
Redeemer Community Church is located in the historic Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, AL. Our church family exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
For more information on who we are, what we believe, or how to join us, please visit our website at rccbirmingham.org.
You have your Bibles, I invite you to turn to Jeremiah chapter one. It's also there in your worship guide. Last week, we were able to announce, you know, we have now got under contract 24 acres over at the old Trinity Hospital site, the Montclair Baptist Hospital site and I mentioned that if any of you wanted to go pray, you could go up there and pray and just and just put a rock on it. I had a place where I just said, redeemer rocks and and it said, can we, do we have a slide? The first one.
Joel Brooks:So, that's what we had last last Sunday. Went there after the service. It was my lonely rock. I went there yesterday and can we oh, yes and so, quite a number of you have have been hiking up the hill or maybe driving up there to go and to pray. I saw one entire home group that was there and none of them brought rocks.
Joel Brooks:So, you you have to come back but once again, you're welcome to go on-site. I love seeing everybody going there and praying and once again, once we move on that site, we will build something with those rocks as a memorial just so we remember that the lord has built this place by listening to our prayers and he has been good to us. So, I encourage you to to go up there at some point and pray. So, Jeremiah, we've we've already looked at Ezekiel. We've looked at Isaiah.
Joel Brooks:We're going to spend the next seven or eight weeks in Jeremiah. He was a contemporary of Ezekiel, although he was about 20 older. But but he, you know, Ezekiel, he got to write his letter mostly while he was in exile. Jeremiah writes most of his book leading into exile. But here we do get to see what does faithful obedience look like as life just gets harder and harder and harder.
Joel Brooks:And so we're gonna read the entire chapter. The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoachim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month. Now, the word of the lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you.
Joel Brooks:I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, Lord, behold, I do not know how to speak for I am only a youth. But the Lord said to me, do not say I am a youth. For to all to whom I send you, you shall go. And whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Joel Brooks:Do not be afraid of them. For I am with you to deliver you, declares the lord. Then the lord put out his hand and he touched my mouth and the lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy, and to overthrow, to build, and to plant. And the word of the lord came to me saying, Jeremiah, what do you see?
Joel Brooks:And I said, I see an almond branch. Then the lord said to me, you have seen well. For I am watching over my word to perform it. The word of the lord came to me a second time saying, what do you see? And I said, I see a boiling pot facing away from the North.
Joel Brooks:Then the lord said to me, out of the North, disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the North, declares the lord and they shall come and everyone shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah and I will declare my judgments against them for all their evil and forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and they have worshiped the works of their own hands But you, dress yourself for work. Arise and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them.
Joel Brooks:And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar and bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you. For I am with you, declares the Lord to deliver you. This is the word of the Lord. You pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father, thank you for prophet Jeremiah. Thank you for preserving his words for us that we might read them so many years later. And Lord, I pray that even though these are ancient words, Lord, you through your spirit, you would speak them directly to our hearts. You would change us. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Jeremiah, perhaps you've heard he's he's known as the weeping prophet And for good reason, I mean, he does write some some pretty hopeful text. I mean, just about everybody they they memorize and love to quote Jeremiah 29, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the lord.
Joel Brooks:Plans for for welfare and not for evil to give you future and a hope. People love to quote that. Most people don't quote like a Jeremiah ten fourteen which is every man is stupid and without knowledge. Jeremiah says both. Most of his book is pronouncing judgment.
Joel Brooks:As a result, people didn't like him. They didn't want to listen to that. Who does? He was beaten repeatedly. He was beaten by the temple officials.
Joel Brooks:He was put in stocks by the priests. He was accused of being a traitor by his nation. He was constantly ridiculed, mocked. People thought he was an absolute joke. He was extremely unpopular.
Joel Brooks:There were no likes on his Instagram post. There were there was nobody giving him you know fist bumps as he walked down the halls in Jerusalem. This guy was he was pariah. He was arrested, he was imprisoned, He was then freed, then he was thrown into a muddy cistern, where he nearly died. Then he was freed and then arrested.
Joel Brooks:He led a very lonely life. The Lord forbade him from getting married. And his own family even left him. He ends his last chapter. His we don't know how many years it was, but the last few years of his life, he just got to watch Jerusalem get destroyed.
Joel Brooks:People taken off into exile while he was taken off into exile into Egypt where he just disappears and we never hear from him again. You would have thought though that this would not have been how his life would have turned out. Because he actually grew up during the greatest revival in Israel's history. The revival that was happening under Josiah's reign. When when Jeremiah was just a kid, Josiah became king.
Joel Brooks:He became king at the age of eight years old. But but here's a kicker, even as an eight year old king, he was better than the kings before him. He began at the age of 16 to establish all of these reforms all throughout Jerusalem, all throughout the land. He brought back the Passover meal. He reestablished the Sabbath.
Joel Brooks:He fixed up the temple. And so this, what would best be described as just revival was actually sweeping all across the land during Jeremiah's childhood. And Jeremiah being the son of a priest, not just any priest, the priest, his dad was Hilkiah. Hilkiah, if you read through second Kings 22, was actually the high priest, the one that was alongside Josiah. As he was leading all these reforms, we're not certain if it's the same Hilkiah, but regardless, Jeremiah's dad was a priest as all of this was happening and so you you could not have had a better time to be a child growing up in a nation like this and to know that your career was going into the priesthood.
Joel Brooks:But things did not turn out how he thought. And very much like Ezekiel's life didn't turn out the way he thought. Three kings are mentioned here at the very start. Josiah, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah. And in just in those three kings, you see the the descent.
Joel Brooks:Josiah described as a person who turned to the Lord with all of his heart, soul, and strength. There's no other king described like that. And then you get Zedekiah. He's just about as pagan as he comes, and he will be the last king of all of Judah. The last thing that Zedekiah sees before he is his eyes are plucked out as he sees all of his sons slaughtered in front of him.
Joel Brooks:And that ends the nation of Israel and Judah. So Jeremiah, he gets to serve the Lord while watching this kind of torturous and tragic end of the people that he loves. Earlier this week, Lauren and I were were having coffee in the morning and we're just we're just talking and some things have just been hitting and we're like, gosh, this is just life is hard. Ministry is hard. And then I just said, at least we're not Jeremiah.
Joel Brooks:That was our comfort. It's like, things could get a lot worse. Our lives are actually pretty good. But don't worry, not all of Jeremiah is just doom and gloom. He is the weeping prophet, but he will have some of the most glorious and hopeful chapters in scripture.
Joel Brooks:He receives his prophetic call at a very early age. We read about this in verses four and five. Now, the word of the lord came to me saying, behold, I formed you in the womb. But before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you.
Joel Brooks:I appointed you a prophet to the nations. I was actually only nine years old when I was called into ministry. I'd it wasn't like any kind of dramatic call or anything. I just kind of knew. When I became a Christian at the age of nine and you know, all of my friends, you ask them what are they gonna do with their lives and they're like, you know, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a fireman.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna be a garbage man right on the back of the truck. I'm be an astronaut. They had all these cool things. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna be a pastor. Just new.
Joel Brooks:And I I to practice as a kid, I actually baptized my cat one time. Full immersion. Didn't didn't went about as well as you thought. But don't worry, I'm not crazy. I made sure my cat was a Christian first.
Joel Brooks:I actually, I remember I shared the gospel with my cat and I made my cat nod his head and it was like, okay, now you go. Jeremiah's call to ministry, it was it was more dramatic than mine. You didn't just kind of know the the lord directly spoke to him but he was only a few years older than me when I heard my call. And and I say, when he heard his call, because he was actually called into ministry much much earlier. He was actually called in the ministry before he was even born.
Joel Brooks:Actually, before he was even conceived. The passage of scripture that we just read is just amazing because what you see here is that your birth is not your beginning. Even your conception is not your beginning. God knew you before you were even born. You already had a plan for your life.
Joel Brooks:That word formed there, formed in the womb is the word for sculpted or of an architect building a well designed building. It's like you're you're not an accident. God carefully, skillfully formed you in the womb. Just like we read about in our opening scriptures. And he knew you.
Joel Brooks:It's a very intimate term. Doesn't just mean he he knew what your eye color was going to be or your personality or your enneagram number or something like that. Of course, he knew those things but Adam knew Eve. It's it's very intimate, intimate term. Loved you before you were even a cell.
Joel Brooks:We also read here that he he had a plan for Jeremiah. It's a plan for our lives. Jeremiah here is set apart to be a prophet to the nations even before God put him in the womb. And you might be thinking, okay, he's just talking about Jeremiah here. He's not actually talking about me.
Joel Brooks:But, let me remind you that first Peter two says, every Christian is a priest. Every one of us. Every person here has been called into some form of ministry. These words are very reminiscent actually of Ephesians two where we read Paul saying this. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Joel Brooks:I mean, that's he might as well be quoting Jeremiah one. God has created each and every one of us for a very particular purpose. He has a unique calling on each one of our lives. Just like Jeremiah, you were created to walk a certain path that he's already laid out for you. And if you don't know that path, I would just encourage you to ask him.
Joel Brooks:If you're a believer, the Holy Spirit is inside of you and he he leads you and he guides you and he and he will tell you where to spend your time, who to talk to, how to spend your resources or your money. He will guide you in that. He will light up the path before you. Jeremiah tries to resist this calling. Verse six, he says, but Lord, I don't know how to speak for I am, you know, I'm just a youth or I'm a teenager here.
Joel Brooks:Do you realize how absurd that argument is actually? That that he would just say, wait a second. I'm just a teenager. I don't know how to talk. And God says, I called you before you were born.
Joel Brooks:What does your merit have anything to do with your calling? You were not chosen for the task because you know, I looked up your LinkedIn profile. Because I, you know, I was impressed with your GPA or something like that. No. Before you ever took your first test.
Joel Brooks:Before you ever took your first breath, I called you to this task. Your strength and your merit has nothing to do with it. Jeremiah's objection here to God's calling in his life, at first it sounds like humility. Oh, I just don't know how to do this. It's not humility.
Joel Brooks:It's a lack of faith. God responds to Jeremiah's objection in verse seven. Do not say I am a youth. For to all who to whom I send you, you shall go and whatever I command you, you shall speak. This is one of those verses you should probably underline.
Joel Brooks:So in the first verses of scripture I ever memorized as a child had a VBS. Do not say I'm a youth. For ever I send you, you shall go. And all that I command you to speak, you shall speak. As I look around this room, I I see a whole lot of 20.
Joel Brooks:I see a few youth. But I also see some gray hairs, some no hairs, and and if you're one of those, we're we're very very thankful for you. We have been praying for you for a long time. We we've been asking if the lord would bring to us some more seasoned, wise people to be in our midst and the lord's answer that. I I think actually the fastest growing demographic we have at our church are is those 50.
Joel Brooks:But if you are no longer a youth, you might be wondering how does this apply to you? Why did I underline this if I'm no longer a youth? Well, let me tell you how. Jeremiah, he holds up his youthfulness as a reason for not obeying God. He's he's he's not just saying talking about his lack of years.
Joel Brooks:He's talking about what does lack of years represent, which is a lack of everything else. It's a lack of wisdom. It's a lack of experience. It's a lack of speaking skills. It very well might be a lack of knowing foreign languages because he's gonna have international ministry.
Joel Brooks:He's gonna he doesn't know Acadian. He doesn't know Ugaritic. And so, youth here just means lack. It means a lack of something. And everyone here is a youth at something.
Joel Brooks:And so when I read this, I hear God saying, do not say that you lack experience, or that you lack wisdom, or that you lack money, or that you lack the courage from being battle tested, or that you lack connections needed to pull off a certain task. For wherever I send you, you shall go. And all that I command you to speak, you shall speak. Because I called you before you were even a youth. So you lack nothing.
Joel Brooks:Hear me, God's not after your obedience, He's not after your skills or your resources. Do you really think like God needs your resources? He's after your obedience. Do you know where God gets angry for the very first time in scripture? It's back in Exodus when God is calling Moses.
Joel Brooks:It's a very similar call. Calls Moses for a task, Moses objects in every way possible. The very first thing is similar here. It's like, I don't know how to speak. And God says, He's patient with us and say, who do you think created your mouth?
Joel Brooks:I'll make you a good speaker. It's okay. It's like nobody's gonna believe me. And God says, it it's okay. I'll give you some miracles.
Joel Brooks:They'll convince people they'll believe. They'll follow you. And these objections just keep going. And finally, Moses' last objection is this. Send someone else.
Joel Brooks:It's not even an argument. It's just, don't wanna do it, send someone else. And there for the first time we read this. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. First time you ever read in scripture about the anger of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:And it's because somebody was refusing their calling. It's because somebody didn't believe they had the skills necessary to pull it off. But hear me, God is not asking you to believe in yourself. He's asking you to believe in Him. And so you don't have to believe in yourself and wonder, can I pull this off?
Joel Brooks:Doesn't matter. Do you believe in God? He's the one with the resources. Last week, I told you about the first time I ever preached. It was terrible.
Joel Brooks:It was verifiably terrible. It was not just a subjective truth. It's it was subjective. It was joyful. It was freeing, but it was terrible.
Joel Brooks:The second time that I preached was worse and it came shortly after that first time. Once again, was in college. I was at a conference in Atlanta. It was for campus ministries, a bunch of them there. So there were students from all over the Southeast.
Joel Brooks:I I didn't go alone to this. A bunch of us from the I was involved in Wesley Foundation at the University of Georgia and we took several vans there. Lauren, we were dating. She was she was with me. She still cringes when I share this story.
Joel Brooks:The conference was, yeah, it was okay. The final speaker got up though and she was terrible. She was the chaplain at Emory. And I just could not believe the things that were coming out of her mouth. She was telling us that Jesus, well, he was not the only way to God.
Joel Brooks:All religions were basically the same. And if that wasn't bad enough, she went on further to say, you know, and when we pray, we unite our spirits with the monkeys and with the trees. I mean, it got it got crazy talk. And I had to give this to her though. She was a really gifted speaker.
Joel Brooks:She was really good. She was eloquent. She was articulate. She had great rhetorical skills. And of course, had the degrees to back it up.
Joel Brooks:And as a result, I looked around the room and people were nodding in agreement. I mean, we're we're youth. She's the adult in the room. We're just youth. Anyway, I I I just I couldn't believe I'm talking.
Joel Brooks:I'm sitting next to my friend, Andy Byers. I'm like, man, we got we gotta go talk to her. We got I we we gotta say something. He's like, we do. I mean, when this is over, let's just go up there and talk to her and I was like, we can't wait till it's over.
Joel Brooks:I can't wait till it's over. And it was just it was just one of those moments. I'm like, and I I remember just thinking, oh gosh, no. Please, Lord, no. You already made me do this once.
Joel Brooks:And he goes, go. And then, dang it, he brought up Jeremiah. Do not say I am a youth. Forever I send you, you shall go. And all that I command you to speak, you shall speak.
Joel Brooks:And I was cursing my VBS teachers for putting that in me when I was a child. And so what what still, I mean like, it felt like a dream. I just got up, and I just began walking down the center aisle while she is just speaking away. And and people are like whispering, Lauren's about to die. And and I just I I I walk and I get up on the stage and I just stand next to her.
Joel Brooks:And so she can't ignore me anymore and she says, can can can I help you? And I was like, I'd like to say something. She goes, okay. And she gave me the mic. And it was at this moment, I realized I had not thought of one thing to say.
Joel Brooks:I had spent all of my energy just trying to muster up the courage. I just do this, just do this. And then in the most important moment when I'm given the mic, I've got nothing. So here was my second sermon I ever preached. Everything this woman said is a lie.
Joel Brooks:That was it. That's all I mean, that was it. Everything she said was a lie. And you could you could hear the gasp. Then I experienced Jeremiah one nine.
Joel Brooks:Then the Lord put out his hand and he touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. And it was at that moment that actually scripture just popped in my head. Colossians two eight. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy or empty deceit according to the human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Joel Brooks:And I just read that. I just read the whole chapter actually. And if you read through Colossians two, it just keeps saying, in Christ we have this. In Christ we have this. In Christ we have this.
Joel Brooks:And all I was doing was just reading it. By the end, the people in the audience were saying, in him. In him. In him. In finish, people actually applauded.
Joel Brooks:Y'all never once applauded when I have ever ever finished a sermon. Thank you for your obedience. Thank you. Charles, thank you. Here's the thing, I was a youth.
Joel Brooks:We all were. I I I lacked pretty much every skill that woman had. But here's the one thing we all have is the word of God. We've got the word. I didn't have to expound on it.
Joel Brooks:Just read the word. That was it. And then the spirit of god used that simple reading of the word to kind of break the spell that was in that room. And then the spirit just came in power. I've shared this before, but you know what the word gospel means, where it got its origins from.
Joel Brooks:The word is the euangelion. It's where we get the word evangelism. And, the gospel was simply the declaration of a king. And when a king made a declaration, it was considered good news, which is how the gospel came to be known as good news. And so a king, he would send his messengers out to all the villages with his gospel.
Joel Brooks:And they would go into a village and they would say, hear ye, hear ye, thus saith the king. And he would just they would just read the Euangelion, the gospel. And then sometimes they would they would just nail that up on a tree or or wherever it So everybody could see it. But when the messengers would come, it did not matter how old they were. I mean, it didn't matter if they were just a teenager.
Joel Brooks:They had a squeaky voice. It didn't matter if they stuttered. It didn't matter if they were good looking, bad looking, educated, uneducated. It none of those things mattered because the authority was not in them. The authority was in the king.
Joel Brooks:They were just a messenger and so they would go and and they would share that and that word as they shared it had authoritative power. So what happens when the gospel we proclaim the gospel when we proclaim the word of God. Jeremiah might have been a youth, but he was given the very words of God. Those words had power. Now, look at verse nine and ten.
Joel Brooks:We we read then the lord put out his hand and he touched my mouth and the lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Six verbs are used there to describe the power of the word of God. Four of those are negative, two are positive. Might as well be the outline of Jeremiah, because that's about the ratio.
Joel Brooks:Look at the first and the last. To pluck and to plant. Lauren and I have in our backyard, there's this little tea olive plant tree. I don't know what you call it. I don't like it.
Joel Brooks:I've been cutting it down for over ten years. It's in a hard reach place. I'm not just lazy. Know, I I just so I just but I can only get there and I can just snip it and it keeps coming and then it keeps coming. It keeps coming.
Joel Brooks:It needs to be pulled up by its roots. There's some things you just can't cut off. That's that first word, to pluck. It might be translated in your bibles to uproot. Often it's used to describe what God does to idolatry.
Joel Brooks:Idolatry just can't cut it off at the surface level. It's got roots deep into us. And it's the word of God empowered by His spirit that comes up and digs those things up. I mean, last week we talked about kind of those surface level fears, and then there's the deep fears underneath them, the roots. We read the word of God can uproot that.
Joel Brooks:Pull it out so it doesn't come back again. But it doesn't just leave a hole. Then the word of God plants. And, we receive new life. We receive new joy.
Joel Brooks:The first word that actually comes to Jeremiah is, hey, what do you see? And, he says, I see an almond branch. For Jeremiah's day in his land, almond branch, an almond bush there is pretty much the same as an azalea bush. It's, you know, when you see an azalea bush beginning to bud, you know spring is on the way, masters it's coming. It was the same with the almond branch there when they had these white blossoms and when it they were beginning to bud and everybody was watching them.
Joel Brooks:They were looking for it. They knew springtime was coming. New life was coming. And when he says, see an almond branch, the Lord says, do you see it right? He says, for I'm watching over my word.
Joel Brooks:The word watch and the word almond branch are almost identical in Hebrew. He's using a little pun here. But the thing is this, he's like saying, do you see what I do in my word? I watch over it and it's beginning to bud. Spring's coming.
Joel Brooks:I will make sure the word that comes out of your mouth bears fruit. But the first word He's given is judgment. It's not what you expect. He says judgment is coming. That's what Jeremiah will spend most of his time proclaiming.
Joel Brooks:It's not a message people wanna hear. Verse 17 says, but you dress yourself up for work, Arise and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. In other words, Christians are to get up, you're to put on the full armor of God, and then you're to fear God and fear no man.
Joel Brooks:That's what he's telling Jeremiah here. Fear me, but fear no person. God ends this chapter by telling him what he's going to make Jeremiah like. He's gonna be like, you know, this fortified city, this this iron pillar, these bronze walls. And at first, you think God's just using this kind of hyperbole to describe them.
Joel Brooks:But actually, no. Because you know what? Jeremiah will actually outlast the very walls of Jerusalem. Those thick, huge walls of Jerusalem will fall down and Jeremiah will still be standing. The very last words of this chapter we read in verse 19, they will fight against you.
Joel Brooks:And boy, will they. We'll see this in the weeks ahead. But they shall not prevail against you. For I am with you, declares the Lord to deliver you. Jesus says these same words when he gives us his commission and what we know is a great commission.
Joel Brooks:Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always to the very end of the age. We take the word that the Lord has given us. We walk in obedience even when it's really, really hard. And we trust that Jesus is with us even to the end of the age.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Lord Jesus, thank you for your word. It can indeed pluck up and it could tear down, could destroy, make a plant. Lord, probably some of us in this room, we need all those things that happen to us. Would you and your kindness in this moment maybe pluck up some of the idols we cling to, we're drawing our life from?
Joel Brooks:Do you rip that out of our hearts through your word? And more Lord, would you plant in us something far more glorious. Would you plant into us your word, your spirit, and give us new life and new joy. And we pray this in the sweet name of Jesus. Amen.