The Lord will bring His people home.

 

Sermon for Easter 6, Rogate, May 9, 2021

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.  Amen.

Jeremiah 29:11-14  ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future.  ¹² Then you will call on me and come to pray to me, and I will listen to you.  ¹³ When you seek me, you will find me, when you will seek me with all your heart.  ¹⁴ I will let you find me, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back from your exile.  I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have sent you as exiles, declares the Lord.  I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (EHV)

The Lord will bring His people home.

Dear sojourners in a foreign land,

            If you want to see a picture of the human condition, just look at the history of the Children of Israel.  Over the course of the last four thousand years, many have pondered why God chose Abraham and his descendants to be the people through whom the Lord would work out the course of salvation for all people.  I think there can’t be any better explanation for choosing Israel than that this people well-represents the whole gamut of mankind.  None of them deserved God’s love, nor do we.  None of them deserved God’s favor, yet He saved generation after generation through faith in His Son.

When we look at Israel’s history, we see God saving an undeserving people solely because of His mercy and kindness.  Abraham was called out of a nation of idolators.  Still, even though he had his own weaknesses and sins, yet “Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)  Later, Abraham’s descendants were enslaved in Egypt, but the Lord rescued them and brought them out to freedom with a display of awesome power that serves as a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do to rescue fallen mankind.  Yet, even after their rescue, those people often went astray, often were guilty of sin, wickedness, and idolatry.  The Lord would discipline Israel when they strayed too far from His will, but when they repented, the Lord would show mercy. 

All of this is why Israel represents the whole of mankind so well.  No one in the history of the world deserved God’s mercy, yet God sent His Son to live and die so that with a mighty display of power, God could rescue a people of His own out of those enslaved by the devil and our own flesh.  Still, like Israel, even after being set free from slavery, we often stumble into sin and idolatry.  Thus, like Israel, we have to endure a time of exile in this cruel and foreign world, and how we long to be in Paradise with our God and Father.  While we wait, we trust the promise God gives again here in this text: The Lord will bring His people home.

Jeremiah had the task of warning God’s people of the exile they had earned.  He then had the duty to tell them how to live in that time of exile so that this people, so important to God’s plan of salvation, would be preserved and even restored.  Those afflicted people didn’t always want to listen to God’s prophet.  In fact, they often wanted to kill him.  However, had they listened to the man God sent, many more of those people would have enjoyed long life on earth and restoration to the fullness of God’s promises.

Here, Jeremiah addresses those who were already in exile, and he admonishes them to make the best of their situation because while they would be exiled in that foreign land for seventy years, God intended to bless them in many ways even through their trials, which brings us to our sermon text in which the Lord through His prophet tells them, “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future.”  God was disciplining His chosen people to turn them away from their former errors.  Still, the Lord had plans to bless them in their time of exile and to give them a rich reward in the end.  This again foreshadows us.  After a life of discipline and many blessings, God plans to reward those who trust in Him with a home in His true Paradise.

The Lord declared this promise to His people: “You will call on me and come to pray to me, and I will listen to you.  When you seek me, you will find me, when you will seek me with all your heart.  I will let you find me, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back from your exile.”  Those people living in exile arrived there without hope, but God reminded them that He had not forgotten His people.  In fact, God’s greatest desire was that they trust Him completely. 

The reason God’s chosen people found themselves in this predicament was sin.  The sins of Israel were numerous and grievous, but their greatest sin was idolatry.  Again, Israel serves as a picture of all mankind.  Now doubtless, you will say that we are not idol worshippers, but while it is true that we haven’t set up any golden calves to offer sacrifices to, we are guilty, for like all people, our greatest sin is the idolatry of self.  We all have set ourselves up as little gods.

Now, I know that sounds terribly nasty—outrageous even, to tell a congregation that they worship themselves.  But, I ask you, how did you enter this world?  On the day you were born, did you worry about your mother’s feelings, or did you demand her attention?  As you grew, were you totally submissive to your parents, teachers, and other superiors, or did you sometimes wish they obeyed you?  Finally, have you perfectly obeyed every one of God’s Ten Commandments all the time every day of your life?  Or, do you, like me and everyone else, sometimes follow your own desires and wishes and disobey God? 

The truth is, every time we break one of God’s commands, any time we doubt any part of His word, every time we worry, whenever we are afraid, if we trust in our works or overvalue our possessions, we are also committing idolatry, because in those moments, we are not trusting God with all our heart, soul, and mind.  If left to ourselves, there would be no hope for us, only eternal despair and exile along with the devil and his wicked angels.

However, that is not what God has planned for you who are hearing these words.  Remember, God said He would let you find Him.  It’s His gentle way of saying He would find you.  Out of all the people of the world, God made sure that you would be brought to life through baptism and the hearing of His word.  Out of all the places you could have been born, God gave you new life with His Gospel.  Furthermore, He promises to hear your prayers.  He will answer your every need.  Most important, the Lord has washed you clean of your sin and idolatry and made you His own dear child. 

“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future.”  The first fulfillment of this promise came seventy years after their sojourn began when the people were allowed to return to their homeland to rebuild the temple.  Yet again, this foreshadows how God will return us to His Promised Land.  In our case, however, we don’t have to load up our oxcarts with all our belongings and travel hundreds of miles over difficult paths.  Instead, God’s Son came down to earth to give us the way home.

On the night He was born the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind.” (Luke 2:14)  Jesus told His disciples, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6)  Finally, Jesus assured His followers, “Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.” (John 14:27)  Though you and I have sinned grievously, we have a great Savior who took all the sins of the world on Himself and He became our righteousness before God. 

Our path to paradise isn’t found in the journeys we take through life but in humble repentance for our sins, great and small, and trusting in Jesus for forgiveness and life.  Now, while we are living in this exile land, we should live for the God who rescued us from slavery, idolatry, sin, and death.  The goal in life shouldn’t be to live for the demons by seeking our own will, but to walk with Jesus, obeying His word in everything we do, trusting that He will take care of us, and especially, trusting the good news that all our sins are forgiven for the sake of Jesus’ blood shed on a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem.

The Lord will bring His people home.  Through Jeremiah, God promised His people, “I will bring you back from your exile.  I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have sent you as exiles,” declares the Lord.  “I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”  Sometimes, our journeys and trials in this life seem almost unbearable.  Sometimes, the temptations seem irresistible.  However, God always has a plan to help you and to rescue you from this dark and dreary place.  Trust Him.  Who knows what tomorrow might bring.  We are bombarded daily by news of disasters here and there.  The airwaves are filled with worry about political upheaval, persecution of fellow Christians, fears of governments abusing their citizens here at home and abroad. 

However, God’s promises are nothing like those of our politicians who pretend to give more than they have the power to achieve.  God’s promises are not even like our own which we know we sometimes fail to keep.  God is always faithful.  Furthermore, God has been planning your rescue and delivery from evil since before Adam and Eve first sinned. 

When Jesus entered this world, He was carrying out the plans God had laid for millennia.  When Jesus went to the cross carrying your sins, He was doing as His Father had planned all along.  And when your parents or someone else told you about all that Jesus has done for you, God the Holy Spirit was behind those words of peace, and He worked faith in you to believe and be saved.

Dear friends, God has a plan for you and me.  He gave His Son to die so that all your sins are removed and forgotten from His heavenly kingdom.  And through Baptism and the preaching of His Word, God allowed you to find Him, and in that rebirth, He wrapped His loving arms around you declaring, “You are mine.  Repent and believe.”

There will come a day when you and I will be ushered out of this life.  From across the far reaches of the earth, the Lord will gather His people.  All who have heard the Good News of what God has done for them in Christ, and believed it, will be gathered together to be taken home to the Paradise that is far more glorious than what any of us can imagine at this point in our lives.  We will leave behind longtime friends and neighbors.  We will leave behind all the material things that God has blessed us with.  But mostly, we will leave behind the troubles, trials, sorrows, and sins of this foreign land, for what the Lord promises will be done.  The Lord will bring His people home.  Amen.

Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for the LORD is good. His mercy endures forever.  His faithfulness continues through all generations.  Amen.