Jeremiah 7:1-11 It is important to be in the Lord’s
house on the Lord’s Day. It so important
that it’s one of the Ten Commandments: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Luther’s Small Catechism explains it this
way: “We should fear and love God so
that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but hold it sacred and gladly
hear and learn it.”
God wants us to be in worship and Bible
study on the Lord’s Day to receive Christ’s gifts of forgiveness and the
strengthening of the Spirit. But as I
always remind our confirmation students, it’s not just our presence that God wants-- but our thoughtful worship. Hearing
God’s Word means taking it to heart. Learning God’s Word means putting it into
practice in our lives.
I am so thankful
to God for everyone present here today-but we ought to be aware that the devil
and our flesh can misuse this sacred
time in God’s house by turning it into an outward act that has no real
connection to our lives in the week to come-- because we do not take to heart what
we hear or put it into practice in our lives.
That’s what
happened to the people in Jeremiah’s day.
They kept the outward form of worship but they never let it change their
lives. They still did, and said, the
right “religious” things. But God’s word
had absolutely no influence on their lives—they went on living in unbelief just
like they had before- with no improvement of life.
God intends for
his words of law and gospel to change us—to deepen our faith and influence our
decisions and to lead us in his ways.
Our lives ought to be different in this new week because of what we have
heard today from God today. The Bible
says:
The word that came to
Jeremiah from the Lord: “Stand in the
gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the
word of the Lord, all you men of Judah
When
we come into the Lord’s house, what we ought to expect to hear—what we ought to
demand to hear --is the Word of the Lord!
Not a stringed-together series of amusing anecdotes. Not what the pastor thinks about politics or
current events. Not some self-help pep
talk. But we ought to hear God’s word of
law that condemns our sin and his word of gospel that forgives our sins in
Jesus.
God has given to
pastors what he wants preached-- and that is his written Word-- and you should
not listen to any man who comes in the name of the Lord bringing anything else other
than God’s Word. BUT-- when the Word of God is preached-- you ought to receive it for
what it is: nothing less than the Lord’s
Word to you.
When you walk into
this place for worship you ought to have an expectancy that the one true and
living God of the universe has something that he wants you to know—that he
wants to change the way you live and deepen your faith in Jesus and guide your
life by his Spirit. He certainly wanted that
for the people of Jeremiah’s day.
Thus says the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel
These words were
spoken by God through Jeremiah at a particularly dark moment in Judah ’s history
as the temporal judgment of God was about to befall them. But even in that late hour-- it was not too late. There was still time for them to hear the
Lord and take his words to heart and put them into action in their lives before
they were carried off into exile.
Specifically,
God wanted them to amend their ways and deeds.
In other words, change how they were living—renew their faith in him—and
commit to doing things differently in the future. God wants the same for us.
And so let me just
ask you in all honesty, when was the last time you heard something in church or
in Bible study and you said to yourself, “You know, I’m wrong in this. I’ve done the wrong thing. I’ve said the wrong thing. This part of my life isn’t right”. And you told the Lord you were sorry and
asked for his forgiveness.
But you left the
Lord’s house and did not do one concrete thing to change the situation or make
it right-- and your life was not one bit different than it was before? Thus
says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel
In other
words: be reconciled to that person you
are at odds with! Stop petting those pet
sins! Change the way you treat the
people in your marriage and family and church!
Amend your ways and your deeds while
there is still an opportunity and do not think for an instance that merely being present in the Lord’s house
is a substitute for a living faith and a changed life. Jeremiah told the people of that day and us
too:
Do not trust in
these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the
Lord, the temple of the Lord.’
So
what did Jeremiah mean by this, that these were deceptive words? After all, they WERE in the temple of the
Lord! How could they be deceived about
that? What he meant was that the people
were deceiving themselves with these
words, thinking that they promised something that they didn’t.
About 150 years
before, the northern kingdom experienced the judgment of God at the hands of
the Assyrians. They suffered God’s
righteous wrath for all the years they had worshipped false gods in pagan
places when the true temple and the true worship of the true God was in Jerusalem .
When Jeremiah
spoke these words, the people of Judah
But when Jeremiah
came to them with God’s Word, warning them of judgment to come, calling them to
amend their lives before it was too late—they turned a deaf ear to what God had
to say and went on as before, denying that they even needed a savior.
You see, alongside
of Jeremiah there were false prophets who told them they had nothing to be
afraid of—that Jeremiah was just a fear-monger—the God would never think about
letting anything happen to his temple-- and so long as they were saying the
right words and doing the right things in worship-- they had nothing to fear.
But they were
deceived-and there is no deception as dangerous to our souls as a religious
deception-- for it blinds us to the truth about ourselves and the truth about
God!
We have a
beautiful sanctuary. The creeds and
confessions of our church are faithful and true. We have worship services that are dignified
and God-glorifying.
But they have a
purpose beyond this time and place of worship:
that you would repent of your sins and trust in Jesus and amend your ways and your deeds.
And if you tell
yourself that it is plenty good enough that you have come to church—that God
ought to be satisfied with your standing and sitting and bowing—you are in a particularly dangerous place spiritually
because what God really wants is to change your life beyond this hour—for
time and eternity. The Bible says:
“If you truly
amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with
another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or
shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to
your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that
I gave of old to your fathers forever.
When
we are truly sorry for our sins- and when we truly believe in Jesus -our lives
will be different. Not perfect—but better. Not without sin—but always hating sin and
desiring to be done with it. Striving to
love God and man as the law demands.
Our faith in Jesus
is not some set of theological propositions we try to keep straight in our
heads—it has an impact on every facet of our lives—on our life with others and
on our life with God. And so what does
that mean for you this week?
Amendment of your
ways and your deeds means that, when it comes to your life with others, you
will make a real, concrete effort to do what you know is right from God’s
Word. Anger and lust and coveting and
gossiping will be taken to the cross and left behind, washed away in the blood
of Jesus.
Amendment of life
means that, when it comes to our relationship with God, we will make a real effort
this week to be faithful in our prayers and bible-reading—that we will turn
aside from occasions for sin and walk by the Spirit. It means that we will stop misusing God’s
name and stop worrying--that we will rest in the forgiveness of Christ.
When it comes to
amending our ways and our deeds we must resist the temptation so say: it’s too late to change now. It’s not!
No more than it was for the Israelites.
This is a day of
God’s grace—a day that he has given for us to hear that Jesus forgives us and
that the Spirit will help us—that so long as we are living and breathing God will
keep his promise to bless us and forgive us and change our lives for time and
eternity. Sadly, the people of
Jeremiah’s day refused God’s salvation and turned a deaf ear to his call for
repentance. He told them:
“Behold, you trust in
deceptive words to no avail. Will you
steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go
after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in
this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go
on doing all these abominations? Has
this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your
eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.
They
did the very opposite of what God asked of them. They mistreated their fellow man and they
abandoned the Lord for false gods. The
regarded the Lord’s house as a lucky rabbit’s foot that would keep them safe-- rather
than the place to hear the voice of God calling them to heartfelt repentance
and faith. The way they lived- and the
way they worshipped- revealed that they really had no faith at all.
They were going
through the motions of worship—but God saw directly into their hearts. The temple that had been set apart for the
worship of the true God (to hear his voice and receive his forgiveness) had
become a den of robbers—not because God was not present there with his gifts of
forgiveness-- but because the people had no faith to recognize him there.
This place too is
set apart for the worship of the true God—to hear his Word and receive the
forgiveness that Jesus Christ won for us on the cross—to be renewed in the
power of the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament so that we can amend our
lives. God is here with the gracious
gifts of forgiveness and life he gives in Jesus Christ.
What about
us? We must not think that we are
magically immune from sins and failures of God’s ancient people --for we are
not. We need the deliverance from sin
and death God has given in Jesus just like they did-- and God’s call through
the prophet to amend our ways and our deeds is spoken to us too!
And so I pray that,
as we hear and learn God’s Word this Lord’s Day, we would take it to heart and
put it into practice in our lives. Amen.
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