Matt Francisco: Before we dive back in to Jeremiah 32 this morning, I wanna share with you an incredible story that I learned a couple of months ago. So soon after the Berlin Wall fell, a team was sent on a mission trip to the former USSR with a very specific mission. They were to take the stones of a former Russian gulag, a forced labor camp where prisoners endured horrific conditions and used those very same stones to construct a church. Ain't that beautiful? These stones that have been used to keep people in a prison of despair were now being used to build a beacon of light and hope in a dark world.
And a few days into their construction process, one of the team members, he found a canister in the rubble And he opened it up and there was a note inside. Because it was written in Russian, they had to run and go find their host pastor to translate it for him. And the pastor wept as he read these words. The note said, we are a community of believers being forced to take the stones of our church and use them to build our own prison. We pray that one day God will hear us and use these stones to build a church again.
Are you kidding me? Isn't that amazing? Though they were surrounded by despair, though in the eyes of the world, all hope seemed lost, our brothers and our sisters in that Russian gulag did not place their hope in what their eyes could see. No, they prayed and they believed that our God is the God who makes everything beautiful in time. They rested in their sure and certain hope that nothing is too hard for the Lord, that He will accomplish His purposes in heaven and on earth because nothing can stop the unstoppable power and promises of the Lord our God.
Amen. And this is our hope too this Advent. No matter what the state of the world is or the circumstances in your life, we who are in Christ, we do not place our hope in what our eyes can see. This side of Advent, we don't pretend that we are in the darkness before Jesus came. Instead, we are meant to take a good hard look at the darkness of our world now and face it honestly, so that we will understand that our great and our only hope is that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and that Christ will surely come again.
To have hope in God is not to have some vague uncertain wish that God is going to fulfill the desires of our heart. Instead, it is to recognize that He alone is trustworthy and good, that everything and everyone else will eventually let you down. But our hope one day will be realized. Our hope in Christ is certain because our God is sovereign. Christ will come again to put every wrong thing right.
And He will, as Joel preached last week, forever be our God, and we will forever be His people. In our passage today, the prophet Jeremiah, he takes a good, hard look at the darkness that he is in and his world is very dark. And he faces it honestly. And his hope is put to the test. You see, for decades, Jeremiah had faithfully preached that if God's people did not repent, God's judgment would come.
People would die. Jerusalem would be destroyed and God's people would be sent into exile. And for decades, God's people had just as faithfully ignored all of Jeremiah's warnings. But now there was no mistaking the signs. The most powerful army in the world is now at the gates of Jerusalem.
The siege bounds are up against the walls. Jerusalem is preparing to starve. The end is near. And if that's not bad enough, for all of his faithfulness, king Zedekiah has thrown Jeremiah in prison. Even so, Jeremiah did not lose hope.
He didn't lose hope because he didn't place his hope in what his eyes could see. He trusted in the infinite power of his promise keeping God. So I wanna ask you this morning as we turn our attention to Jeremiah 32. Where is your hope found? What is your hope in life and in death?
And can it hold you? Now listen closely, for this is the word of the Lord your God. We're gonna start in Jeremiah chapter 32, beginning in verse six. Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me. Behold, Hanamel, the son of Shalom, your uncle, will come to you and say, buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.
Then Hanamel, my cousin, came to me in the court of the guard in accordance with the word of the Lord and said to me, buy my field that is at Antoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours. Buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. And I bought the field in Anatoth for Hanamel, my cousin, and weighed out money to him, 17 shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales.
Skip to verse 13. I charged Baruch in their presence saying, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let's pray. Our father, as Lauren prayed earlier, I don't know the hearts or the minds of the circumstances of the people in this room, but you do. I pray that you would meet them here. They didn't come here to hear from me because the best thing that I could offer to them is advice. We are here to hear from you because your name and your renown, those are the desires of our hearts.
And so we say to you like Simon Peter did to Jesus, Lord, where else would we go because you have the words of eternal life? Lord, I confess my own unworthiness and feebleness this morning to preach so great a passage. I just pray out of your grace and by the power of your Holy Spirit, you might speak to your people according to your word. I pray these things in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I'm gonna set the scene for you just one more time, just so you see how outrageous Hanamel's request really is. So Jeremiah is rotting in prison, probably assuming that he is going to die there. Those in Jerusalem, they are preparing either to be slaughtered, to starve, or to be carried out into exile because the Babylonian hordes are at the gate. And it's at just this moment that Jeremiah's sweet, tender, kind hearted cousin Hanamel comes to him with a business proposition. You can imagine him looking down at the pit and what he doesn't say, he doesn't say, Jeremiah, looks like things aren't going so well for you.
Do you need anything? I was gonna run by the store later. Do you need any like groceries, toothbrush or something? No. He also doesn't say, Hey, I know we gave you a hard time for decades, right?
That we've ignored you like your whole life. Our bad, turns out you were right. No. What does Hanamel do? He says, I have a field and you have to buy it.
That's right. I said, have to buy it. Because what Hanamel is doing here, it's not actually a business proposition. He is making a moral obligation upon his cousin. You see, according to Jewish law, the land that God gave to each tribe when they entered the promised land was always meant to stay within the family.
It was meant to be passed down from generation to generation. It was never meant to be sold except under extraordinary circumstances. In that case, according to Leviticus 25, the person who had to sell the land was supposed to go to their closest relative and say, I need you to redeem this land for me, to be a kinsman redeemer like we see Boaz in the book of Ruth. And if they were able, they were under an obligation to buy or redeem that land. And it's this right of redemption that Hanamel is demanding of his cousin.
So this is callousness at best and cruelty at worst. Right? And to make matters even worse, Hanamel's field is in Antoth. Where is Anathoth? It's on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Meaning at that very moment, in all likelihood, the Babylonian troops are camped on Hanamel's field. That land is completely and utterly worthless. But Jeremiah doesn't do what I might've done in that situation. He doesn't cuss out his cousin and tell him to get lost. He doesn't wallow in self pity.
What does he do? The text tells us that when Hanamel came, he knew it was the word of the Lord that had come to him. And he weighs out 17 shekels of silver to buy Hanamel's field. And he puts the deeds in earthenware vessels to make sure that they last a long time. I want you to notice something.
Jeremiah, for all he knew, he was never going to live to see the field that he was investing in. He didn't have a wife or a family to pass it down to either. Hanamel and the watching world must have thought that Jeremiah was an absolute fool. But was he? No.
After all, we all invest in the things that we care the most about, don't we? Where we invest our time, our talents, and our treasure, it reveals what it is that we most care about. Not the things that we say that we care the most about, but the things that we actually care the most about. Our investments have a way of revealing our hearts and our hopes. And so I wanna ask you again, where are you placing your hope this morning?
Would the unbelieving world look at the way that you spend your time or the way that I spend my time and my treasure and my talents? And would they notice a difference between the way that I spend them and they spend them? What I am investing in and what they are investing in? Do they look at us as though we were fools because we have not set our hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but we have recklessly trusted and invested in the kingdom of God and in our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ. Jeremiah in this moment, because he trusts the Lord, in the eyes of the world, he is recklessly investing what little he has in a future that he may never see, a future that must have seemed at that moment absolutely impossible to imagine.
But Jeremiah's hope was not in what his eyes could see. He prays and he holds fast to his sure and certain hope that nothing is too hard for the Lord, that God will accomplish his purposes in heaven and on earth because nothing can stop the unstoppable power and promises of God. Let's pick back up in verse 16. After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch, the son of Nareah, I prayed to the Lord saying, ah, Lord God, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them. Oh, great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts. Skip down to verse 21. You brought your people, Israel, out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm and with great terror. And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give to them, a land flowing with milk and honey.
And they entered and took possession of it, but they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore, you have made all this disaster come upon them. Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it. And because of sword and famine and pestilence, the city is given to the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it.
What you spoke has come to pass and you see it. Yet you, oh Lord God, have said to me, buy the field for money and get witnesses, though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. Jeremiah is confused. God has promised judgment upon his people, promised to carry them into exile for seventy years. And yet the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and called him to buy this field, saying that houses and lands and vineyards will grow and be sold here.
I want you to notice two things in particular about Jeremiah's prayer. First, Jeremiah obeyed the word of the Lord even when he didn't understand it and he may not have particularly liked it. Jeremiah did not doubt, debate, or even delay. He just obeyed and we would do well-to-do the same. When God's word to us is clear, whether or not we like it or understand it, our call is to obey.
And then we go to the Lord in prayer, seeking understanding. Second, Jeremiah prays the word of the Lord. He quotes or alludes to several passages throughout scripture, and he's slowly building his case based on the power or on God's power and God's promises. Jeremiah prays, Lord, you made the heavens and the earth by your great power. Nothing is too hard for you.
You brought your people up out of Egypt, the most powerful nation in the world at that time. Nothing is too hard for you. You can do it again. I know you can, but will you? Will you rescue your undeserving people?
Will you show Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians that you keep your promises, that you rule all of heaven and all of the earth, and that nothing is too hard for you? Jeremiah pleads upon the power of God, but he also pleads upon the promises of God. Look back at verses sixteen and seventeen. Jeremiah says, after I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Nariah, I prayed to the Lord saying, ah, Lord God. And the capitalized Lord and God in both of these verses is God's covenant name, Yahweh, which is almost always used in the Old Testament in direct connection to God's covenant promises.
Meaning that Jeremiah is using God's name to specifically remind God of the unqualified promises that he has made to his undeserving people. And make no mistake, God's people are absolutely undeserving. In fact, God Himself will later say in this chapter that this whole society from the king all the way down to the street was full of evil. That they would offer themselves up to foreign gods and they would even offer up their children as sacrifices. No, the real question wasn't why judgment and exile was finally here so much as it was why it hadn't come earlier.
Jeremiah is not confused about why judgment has come. He's confused about why God has given the land to the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, God's people's enemies. And he has told Jeremiah to buy land currently occupied by God's people's enemies. And he brings his confusion to Yahweh, the all powerful, promise keeping God. Jeremiah obeyed, and then he prayed.
And then God responds in verse 27. Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall capture it. The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city shall come and set this city on fire and burn it, with the houses on whose roofs offerings have been made to Baal and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods to provoke me to anger.
Skip to verse 37. Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place and I will make them dwell in safety and they shall be my people and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for their own good and for the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them.
And I will put the fear of me in their hearts that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness with all my heart and all my soul. For thus says the Lord, just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I promised them. Man. God says back to Jeremiah, is anything too hard for me?
It's a rhetorical question, but it's worth us asking. Right? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Our God is in heaven and he does as he pleases in heaven and on earth. He calls the very stars out by name.
The wind and the waves, they obey him. The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. The kings of the earth, they plot and they take their stand, but the Lord who is in heaven, He sits enthroned and He laughs at them. Our God reigns unrivaled on His throne. Great Nebuchadnezzar, the one that all of Jerusalem is currently afraid of, the most powerful man in the world, one day he's gonna look out over his kingdom and he's gonna say this, he's gonna say, Is this not great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power?
You know what happens to him? That next moment, Daniel four tells us that a voice from heaven comes and Nebuchadnezzar is told that he's gonna eat grass like an ox for seven years until he knows that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will. Nebuchadnezzar, when he's restored, he lifts his eyes to heaven. And he says that God's dominion is an everlasting dominion that the Most High does according to His will among the host of heaven, and none can stay His hand or say to Him, what have you done?' This means that when God says to Jeremiah, 'I will gather them from the land to which I drove them and I will bring them back. He is speaking with absolute certainty because he is absolutely sovereign.
Our God has absolutely no rival or equal. No one can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? It is his hand that is sending his people into exile, and it will be his hand that will bring them back again. And God's grace will have the final word because God said that it would, and nothing can stop his power or his promises. Jeremiah confesses his faith.
Looking out in the world looking at his circumstances, his faith made no sense. But he made the confession. God, nothing is too hard for you. And God responded, is anything too hard for me? And I ask you this morning, is anything too hard for the Lord?
What is it in your life that you wonder if God is ever gonna come through on? Is anything too hard for the Lord? What about the anxiety that cripples you? What about the grief that you feel at the prodigal that is yet to come home? What about the broken relationships that you have longed to be restored?
Or that friend or family member that you've been praying for for decades to come to faith? Or that sin that you just can't seem to shake. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. So go, go to the all powerful and promise keeping God to ask him to do what only he can do. God's people, they would return from exile.
They would be brought back to Jerusalem. But their return was just a shadow of the substance that would come. Because one day, the greatest of all the covenant promises is going to come to pass. The dwelling place of God will finally and forever be with man. That we will be his people and he will forever be our God.
And on that day, the greatest enemies of God's people, not the paltry enemies of Assyria or Babylon or Rome, but the enemies of sin, Satan, and death will themselves be put to death forever. And God says he's going to wipe away every single tear from all of his people's eyes. And while now we may walk through this world of woe, we do not lose heart and we do not lose hope. While hope deferred makes the heart sick, the hope of God's people is certain because our God is sovereign. No matter what our eyes might see, we have a sure and certain hope that nothing is too hard for the Lord, that He will fulfill His purposes in heaven and on earth because nothing can stop the unstoppable power and promises of God.
But over the last two weeks, what God says next has absolutely rocked me. And it is as unexpected as it is unimaginably beautiful. Look back at verses forty and forty one. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, and I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts that they may not turn from me.
I will rejoice in doing them good. And I will plant them in this land in faithfulness with all my heart and all my soul. What in the world is God saying here? He is saying that His heart is bursting forth of love towards you. He is saying that He is relentlessly committed to your good.
You're not even relentlessly committed to your good. How often do you sabotage what it is that you really want? I do it every single day. And this passage is saying that every second of every minute of every hour of every day of your entire life, God is working for your absolute good. And why does he do it?
Did you catch it? It says because he likes it so much. It is his great pleasure to pour out all of his goodness and all of his love upon you. He does it with all of his heart and all of his soul. In other words, whatever else might occupy god's time and attention, I don't know, like ruling the entire universe, all that He does in creation bends towards this one aim, that He might pour out the boundless store of His love upon you.
He doesn't love you or do good to you begrudgingly. No, he's saying that there is nothing that brings him more joy. And I'm gonna say it again because I don't think you actually believe me because I don't know if I actually believe these words. There is nothing that God enjoys more than pouring out his love upon you. And if you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the words of the great Charles Spurgeon.
Charles Spurgeon said, We are happy when God blesses us, but not so happy as God is. We are glad when we are pardoned, but he that pardons us is gladder still. The prodigal going back to his home was very, very happy, but not so delighted as his father, who could say, this, my son, was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. The father's heart was the fullest of delight, and it was by far the larger heart so that it could hold more joy.
My friends, this is impossibly good news. And yet I know that there are some of you here that your eyes are turned inward and you're thinking of your own sin. And you think maybe that's true for somebody else, but that couldn't possibly be true for me. If you knew the darkness or the sin that was in my heart, you would know that that's not for me. But your unworthiness is exactly the point.
God's love is poured out upon those who deserve it the least. God is supremely glorified and pouring out his measureless love upon his undeserving people. Sinners who come before him confessing their own neediness in Christ's sufficiency. You may think that your sins are too great or too dark to be forgiven, but they are absolutely no match for the power of God's love. And maybe you're sitting here this morning and you're thinking, but yesterday I did it again.
I fell into that same sin that has captured me over and over and over again, all of these years. Surely at some point, God is gonna get tired of forgiving me. Surely at some point, God is going to grow tired of me. My friends, if that is you this morning, nothing could be further from the case. Though we have often grown tired of the Lord our God, he has promised to never tire of doing good to us.
If God began pouring out His grace upon you while you were, as Colossians tells us, His enemy, you think He's gonna grow tired of doing good to you now that He calls you His children? Absolutely not. There is no chance for God to cease to love His own, He would have to cease to exist. Because our God does not merely love us. First John tells us that He is love.
Are you beginning to see? I pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you have tasted a drop of God's love this morning, but I need you to know that there is an infinite ocean in front of you, that we have not even skimmed the surface. If you are here this morning and you are in Christ, God could not possibly love you any more than He does. He could not possibly be any more committed to your good. No matter what the circumstances of your life look like or the world outside looks like, you can rest your sure and certain hope that in life and in death, you belong body and soul to a savior who loves you more than you could possibly imagine.
You can rest in Him, trusting that just as Christ died and rose again, Jesus will come again in all of His power and with all of his pleasure to fulfill all of his promises. But if you were here this morning and you have not yet placed your hope and your faith in Jesus, I wanna ask you, what are you waiting for? I dare you to imagine a God who is more loving or kind or forgiving than this. Jesus is the perfect savior. And I wanna ask you, what is your hope in life and in death?
Because everything and everyone else will eventually fail you and let you down, but not him. And this doesn't mean that God's going to grant you your heart's desire that you won't walk through suffering or sorrow. Jeremiah clearly shows us that that's not the case. But it does mean that you can trust him to leverage all of his power and all of his love to do you good for all of your days. After all, how could the promises of the new covenant come to pass?
How could an infinitely holy God promise to live forever with a sinful rebellious people? Only only if that all powerful and promise keeping God marshals all of his power and all of his heart and all of his soul in redeeming his people by taking the judgment that they rightly deserve for their sins upon himself. I wanna plead with you this morning to fix your eyes and fix your hope on the author and the perfecter of your faith, on Jesus, your redeemer, bowed low in the Garden Of Gethsemane, the mighty prince of heaven agonizing in prayer, the cup of wrath that stands before him with bloody sweat dripping down his body. But in that moment, though our sin was great, his love was greater still. And Hebrews 12 tells us that it was for the joy that was set before him that Jesus endured the cross, scorning its shame, and then sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
And how could anyone look at the horror and the degradation and the brutality of the cross and call it a joy? Only only if Jesus knew on the back end it meant that he could have you. That was the joy that carried him through. So fix your eyes on him with his arms outstretched on the cross, rejoicing in doing us good with all of his heart and all of his soul, even as the wrath of God was being poured upon him, redeeming you, not like Jeremiah was silver, but at the cost of his own blood, so that he could welcome us forever into his warm embrace, so that we could rejoice and hope that the destiny of the world rests in the hands of a savior and redeemer who is called Emmanuel. God with us.
God for us and somehow impossibly not against us. God with us and for us now and forever. So let us in turn love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Let us trust not in what our eyes can see, but in the power and the promises and the pleasure of our God. Let us sow our seeds investing in hope, trusting that as surely as Christ has died, as surely as He is risen again, one day Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming and every wrong will be made right. And this morning, we confess our hope once again as we come to this table. Because on the night that Jesus was betrayed, after he had given thanks, he took bread and he broke it. He said, this is my body, which is for you. In the same way, he took the cup, he lifted it up, he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
You see, Advent is the church's way of looking backward and forward at the same time, and communion offers us the same opportunity. The apostle Paul would later say that as often as we eat of this bread and we drink of this cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. That means as long as it is called today in the present, we who have placed our hope in Jesus, we come to this table, We confess our own great neediness and our great savior. We look to the past. We look at Jesus' finished work on the cross where he said once and for all, it is finished.
The righteous for the unrighteous, that Jesus did everything to bring us to God. And we look with sure and certain hope to the future. We proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And surely, church, he is coming soon. Amen?
Here's how we're gonna celebrate communion this morning. We're gonna start with those in the balcony and then make our way from the back all the way to the front. If you will make your way down this center aisle, and we'll have four servers up here, you'll take a piece of bread, break it off, and dip it in the cup, and you'll hear these words. This is the body of Christ, which is for you. This is his blood shed for you.
This is nonalcoholic wine and on the tables, we have, gluten free options with grape juice, if if you desire those. But please, if you grab from these tables, stay and participate in the words and liturgy being offered. This table is open to all baptized believers. And by that, we mean that anyone who has placed their hope in Jesus Christ, who has repented of their sins, trusted in Jesus' finished work, and confessed it before the world through the act of baptism. And if that's not you this morning, I would love to talk to you.
Our staff, our elders would love to pray with you. But that is, let us continue in worship, rejoicing in the goodness of our God and savior. I'm gonna pray for us, and then if our servers could come forward. God, there is no one like you and there is no God but you. We place all of our hope and all of our trust in you because you are worthy.
We do not trust what our eyes can see. We do not trust in princes or in chariots. We trust in the name of the Lord our God. And I pray that you would cause my brothers and sisters' hearts to abound in hope this morning because you have been impossibly good to us. And you who have promised you will surely do it.
One day, our faith will be made sight. We trust in you as we come to this table because you have loved us beyond all we could ever ask or imagine. We pray these things in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit. Amen.