Hear the word of the Lord—so to live.

 

Sermon for Trinity 10, August 16, 2020

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.  All who do his precepts have good understanding.  Amen.

Jeremiah 7:1-7  The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.  ²Stand in the gate of the House of the Lord and proclaim this message there.  Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who are coming through this gate to worship the Lord.  ³This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.  Reform your ways and your actions, and I will establish you in this place.  ⁴Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”  ⁵Sincerely reform your ways and your actions.  Carry out justice between a man and his neighbor.  ⁶Do not oppress the alien who lives in your land, the fatherless, or the widow.  Do not shed innocent blood in this place.  Do not follow after other gods to your own harm.  If you avoid these things, ⁷I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your fathers forever and ever. (EHV)

Hear the word of the Lord—so to live.

Dear fellow redeemed,

            If you wanted to summarize the message God gave Jeremiah to proclaim in the temple gates, you couldn’t do any better than to say, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and, love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)  Our text simply restates the primary law given to God’s people, proclaimed again with the intention of correcting their wandering ways.  Accordingly, we might say: Hear the word of the Lord—so to live.

The people of Israel had been promised many things that were conditional on their faithfulness to the Lord, but time and again, they had failed miserably at following in their forefathers’ footsteps.  Not that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were without sin.  In fact, they each had their own failings.  Yet, they trusted God’s promise completely, and it was that trust and faith in the One true God that changed their lives forever.

The same gospel promises that gave salvation to the patriarchs were available to the Israelites of Jeremiah’s time.  They simply no longer cared.  Success and wealth in the world took priority in their lives.  The power of the Almighty no longer impressed them either.  Now, they simply took for granted that God, who had promised to dwell with them in the temple, would protect them whether they served faithfully and believed Him or not.  Their worship became a charade—offering sacrifices because that’s what the nation always did, but at the same time also worshipping the gods of their neighbors, because it was fun, or because the neighbors seemed successful worshipping their idols.  Or, they didn’t worship any god because who is to say that the gods had anything to do with worldly success?

If that sounds anything like our world, it’s because the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Mankind has always taken advantage of God’s providence and forbearance.  Perhaps we do too.  How often do we take for granted that God will bless us with good health and bountiful crops?  How often are we disappointed or even accusatory against God when He allows seemingly bad things into our lives?  How often do we enjoy following the ways of the world rather than gladly hear and obey His divine instructions?

It is always easy for us to pick the low-hanging fruit and point at other people and other church bodies that disobey God.  Yet, we need to humble ourselves and realize that no one is perfect, no one can stand in the Lord’s judgment on his or her own merit.

That’s why the chief purpose of God’s Word is to bring His promises of forgiveness and salvation to light.  Jeremiah was to proclaim, “Reform your ways and your actions, and I will establish you in this place.  Do not trust in deceptive words.”  The deceptive words they faced were the errors of the faithless teachers and false prophets among them.  Israel was not without preachers, teachers, and prophets.  However, the vast majority of those had abandoned the Lord for earthly gain.

Again, we find it much the same in our day.  Our nation may consider itself a Christian nation, but to our shame, many of the churches and denominations have abandoned the truth of the scriptures for a variety of humanistic fancies.  We dare not think that those wicked delusions could have no effect on us.  We must fight continually to hold ourselves, and our children, to the pure word of our Lord lest we succumb to the ways of the unbelieving world.

But when we stand with the Lord Jesus, who pleaded with His Father on our behalf saying, “Sanctify them by the truth.  Your word is truth. (John 17:17), the rewards are magnificent and eternal.  St. Paul so poignantly quoted Isaiah and declared, “‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news of peace, who preach the gospel of good things!’  But not all obeyed the gospel.  For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who believed our message?’  So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:15-17)

Hear the word of the Lord—so to live.  The word gives life.  Jesus promised, “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, God’s wrath remains on him.” (John 3:36)  St. Paul later assured his fellow believers, “God chose you from the beginning for salvation by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and faith in the truth.  For this reason he also called you through our gospel so that you would obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14)

Our Lord didn’t send His prophets and apostles out to the world just to teach mankind how to be nice to each other, how to become rich, or to declare that what the majority of people decide is good enough, or even that we must make everyone’s life pleasant on earth.  Instead, the Son of God came into the world to rescue us out of this corruption, and having won our release from sin and death, Jesus sends salvation to us through the work of the Holy Spirit in the message of the Gospel.

The holy Scriptures are focused on bringing salvation to the world through faith in Christ Jesus.  Everything centers on that truth.  At the same time, there is much in God’s Word to guide us in our daily living as believers and members of God’s kingdom.  If God is good, merciful, and kind, should not we His children also be so?  The obvious answer is yes.

The people of Judah in Jeremiah’s day ignored God’s Word and used His temple only as a good luck charm.  Faith was not important to much of that crowd, obviously excepting Jeremiah and a remnant of other faithful believers still clinging to God’s promises.  That’s why the Lord had Jeremiah stand in the temple gates proclaiming day after day: “Sincerely reform your ways and your actions.  Carry out justice between a man and his neighbor.  Do not oppress the alien who lives in your land, the fatherless, or the widow.  Do not shed innocent blood in this place.  Do not follow after other gods to your own harm.” 

God was deeply offended when His people brought offerings only in the hope of buying a better crop or business success.  Furthermore, He insisted that no member of His kingdom cheat his neighbor or take advantage of the downtrodden and stranger.  The lives of their fellow man were to be protected and cherished.  In this election season, we should be asking ourselves, is it justice to allow unborn children to be callously slaughtered in the womb?  Is it justice to allow rioting, robbery, and burning of our neighbors’ property?  At the same time, we must examine ourselves to see whether we are doing what we can to help and befriend those among us who need our love.

God says, “Sincerely reform your ways and your actions.”  The apostle John wrote, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his Word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8-10)  In humility, we bow before the Lord God of heaven and earth confessing our shortcomings and failures, our sins and iniquities.

Still, our faithfulness to God doesn’t stop with just saying we are sorry.  James wrote, “If a brother or sister needs clothes and lacks daily food and one of you tells them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but does not give them what their body needs, what good is it?  So also, such “faith,” if it is alone and has no works, is dead.” (James 2:15-17)

In this text, the plea to trust in the one true God rings out again.  God said, “Do not follow after other gods to your own harm.”  After the Lord rescued His people out of slavery in Egypt, He declared to them, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God.  I follow up on the guilt of the fathers with their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren, if they also hate me.  But I show mercy to thousands who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:5-6)  Our Creator rightly expects complete loyalty and trust.  God knows He is the only One who can help and save us—the only One who can take away our guilt and restore us in righteousness.

Through good times and bad, the faithful look to God’s hand for whatever they might need.  Through times of plenty or poverty, prominence or persecution, we look with thanksgiving to the Lord.  Though every person in history has sinned against God, God has been faithful to His promise to rescue us through a Son of the woman.  That Son of God and Man is Jesus. 

Through Jesus, God showed mercy to the world—to you and me.  Jesus told His disciples, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)

The Gospel tells us that Jesus, the Son of Man, was lifted up on a cross shedding His blood to cover our sins and giving His life so that we might truly live.  The word of God guides us and saves us.  Hear the word of the Lord—so to live.  Amen.

May the LORD our God be with us, just as he was with our fathers.  May he never leave us or abandon us.  May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways.  Amen.