The Prophet: The Life of Jeremiah

This is week two of our series on the prophet Jeremiah.  This week we'll learn a little more about what it means to worship God.  God wants more than hypocritical ritual; he desires us to worship him with our whole heart.  We'll see what that means for us in our worship today.

This message is based on Jeremiah 7:4-11.



This is the second week of our looking into the life of Jeremiah.  Last week we looked at Jeremiah’s call, and the one thing that really struck me was that the words God gave Jeremiah were basically the same as what we saw the week before when we looked at Jesus’ call in our lives – His four commissions.  We saw that we were sent, to different kinds of people, with a message, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Those are the commissions that Jesus his followers.
 
Last we saw that Jeremiah was sent, with a message, to a wicked people, but God is with Him.  It’s significant to me that God’s call to Jeremiah is the same as God’s call to each of us.  That tells me that’s how He does it.  That’s God call (period).  That’s what God expects from everyone that wants to follow Him.  I think that was really significant.  That we are all called by God to share His message, His good news, His gospel. 
 
And to take this out a step further, there are certain things we are gifted to do.  Things that we can do that not everybody can do as well.  We might be gifted in the area of teaching, of serving, of working with children, working with finances, goal setting, discernment, prophecy, there is a host of items that some are gifted for, they are given special spiritual gifts that not everybody has, that you are given to serve the Body of Christ with. 
 
But there are also some things that we are all supposed to do, whether we are specifically gifted to do them or not.  We are all called to love one another, we are all called to serve one another, especially the poor and weak among us, and we are all called to share – to be witnesses of what God is doing in our lives. 
 
That’s an area that I think the Church is a little light on these days.  We think we’re not evangelists, so we don’t say anything to anybody.  But there is a difference between an evangelist and a witness.  You may not be gifted to enter a stadium filled with 20,000 people and proclaim the Word of God.  That’s okay.  You are still expected to be a witness, to share what you see God doing in your life, one on one, in personal relationships, sharing the reason for the hope that you have.  That’s a fundamental part of our calling as Christians.  If you follow Christ, you should be sharing the blessings you’ve received because of Him.
 
Moving on to this morning, we are looking a little deeper at Jeremiah’s message.  Last week we saw, in Jeremiah 1:9, “Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘Now, I have put my words in your mouth.’”  God gave Jeremiah the words to speak – He gave him the message. 
 
Here in Chapter 7 we see the beginning of the message God gave Jeremiah.  In verse 2, God directed Jeremiah to “Stand at the gate of the Lord’s house and there proclaim this message.”  Now it doesn’t actually say this in the text, but most commentaries suggest that this was one of the three big feast days of the Jewish year, where every Jewish male was required to go to the temple with a sacrifice.  If that was the case, hundreds of thousands of people would have passed him. 
 
Something I saw as I studied this, the chief priest would often put somebody at the gate of the temple during these feast days to share something as people entered the temple.  It would a nicety, something like “Remember God your Father.”  Something very short and sweet that would cause people to become a little more reverent and think about God as they came to offer their sacrifice.
 
If this was a Jewish Feast day, God evidently instructed Jeremiah to chase that person off, and give His message instead.  This would have taken a great deal of courage on the part of Jeremiah.  The religious leaders could come any time and threaten to chase him off if he didn’t stop, his message wasn’t very kind to them.  But that didn’t dissuade him. 
 
While some leaders may have said the people could act however they wanted and then come do their rituals in the temple, Jeremiah calls out their hypocrisy. “Do not trust in deceptive words and say, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” (v. 4).  We might be tempted to “go through the motions” in order to appease God, then we come to church, we might even serve in the church, we might go to Sunday School, and we think we’re okay because of that.  Jeremiah reminds us that God is interested in the true state of our hearts.  Not just what we do, but who we are.
 
Essentially, Jeremiah is telling the people to repent.  And he mentions three particular areas in verse 6 the people need to repent from, it says, “if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place.”  Remember, this is a judgment against the people, prophesying the Babylonian invasion.  Let’s look at each of these…
 
1)  Do not oppress the helpless.  There were three general categories of the helpless that Jews were expected to help out:  The orphans, the widows, and the aliens.  Essentially these are people who have no one else to help them.  Society was a very patriarchal society.  The home was the basic unit.  You took care of those in your home, those in your household.  That could be wives, children, servants, extended family – anybody in your household.  When the home is solid, and the Father, the patriarch is doing well, all functions as it should, and all are taken care of.
 
But when the patriarch dies, there may be widows and orphans left with no one to care for them anymore.  And I don’t just mean no more social connections, I mean no more physical means of support.  When the patriarch is gone, there is no more food or shelter.  There’s nothing.  There were no safety nets – no social security, no unemployment, no welfare.  For a widow or an orphan, there was nothing.  Except the generosity of others.  That’s why the bible says so much about it. 
 
Today in the news we’re hearing a lot about aliens.  While I’m not sure we need to bend over backwards for those who don’t come here legally, I also know the bible commands compassion for the alien.  It’s a hot button topic for both political parties – just look with compassion on those looking for a fresh start, hoping to support their families, those that have no one else.
 
In Exodus 22:22, it says, “Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.”  Psalm 82:3 says, “Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and oppressed.”  James goes so far as to say, in 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  In other words, if you want to please God, you need to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves.  I think James makes it almost foundational to our faith.
 
A quick story, years ago I remember hearing of a priest in Baltimore who made sandwiches for the homeless people who lived under a bridge not far from his church.  There were quite a few of them, and he made hundreds of sandwiches.  As others began to hear about his work with the homeless, some wanted to help, and he welcomed that help.  But one day someone just offered him some money to help cover his expenses.  His response:  Make your own sandwiches.  Don’t just pay someone else to help the helpless - find out what you can do to help the helpless.
 
2)  Do not shed innocent blood.  We know that in the Ten Commandments that we should not commit murder.  In verse 9 we see some other violations of the Ten Commandments, “Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known.”  It seems that the people had forgotten the basics of their faith.  Obviously, murder is the shedding of innocent blood.  We don’t kill each other, and if we do, the Old Testament called for our being put to death. 
 
In fact, to take things to the next level, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22).  So not only are we not to murder, we aren’t even supposed to get angry.  The anger in our hearts is what leads to murder, so stop it in your heart, don’t get angry.  Don’t go there.  If we’re living a pure faith, we can’t let ourselves get angry.  We’ve got to be in control our anger.  It is so important that we learn to control our anger.  We’ve got to live at peace with one another.
 
3)  Do not walk after other gods.  I would suggest this is largely a question of worship.  Who are you going to worship.  For them, they had begun to include burning incense to a foreign god.  Their faith began to get watered down to where it no longer did them any good.  I could get into a discussion on the idols you may have, but I’d rather talk about worship.
 
I think it denigrated into questions like:  How are you going to worship?  What are you going to worship?  What does “worship” really mean?  Churches have loved fighting over the “right” way to worship.  How much do we do during worship?  How many songs?  What kind of songs?  How much liturgy?  What form does it take?  But that isn’t really worship. 
 
In an article in Christianity Today titled What is True Worship, Delesslyn Kennebrew said, “Worship is not the slow song that the choir sings. Worship is not the amount you place in the offering basket. Worship is not volunteering in children's church. Yes, these may be acts or expressions of worship, but they do not define what true worship really is…  True worship, in other words, is defined by the priority we place on ‘who’ God is in our lives and ‘where’ God is on our list of priorities. True worship is a matter of the heart expressed through a lifestyle of holiness.”  Worship isn’t just what we do here on Sunday.  True worship is a 24/7 attitude of the heart.  If our heart isn’t right six days a week, we aren’t going to do anything on Sunday that’s going to make a difference. 
 
That was the problem the people in Jeremiah’s day faced.  They lived however they wanted, then came to the temple and offered their sacrifices, and thought everything was okay.  That’s what it meant in verse 9-10, we already saw in verse 9, “Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known., and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my name, and say, ‘we are safe’ – safe to do all these detestable things?  That’s a rhetorical question, the answer is NO.  Absolutely not. You’re not to live that way.  As children of God, we’re not to live that way.
 
So as I try to summarize the message for us this morning, let me urge you to examine your life in regard to these three points that Jeremiah brought to the attention of those going into the temple.  How are you doing at helping the helpless?  More importantly, what are you doing to help the helpless?  Are you making sandwiches?  Is there something else you can be doing? 
 
Are you shedding innocent blood?  Do you have a problem controlling your anger?  Are you living at peace with everyone?  Are you worshipping God?  Truly worshipping?  Sold out?  Living your faith all the time?  Do the people who meet you walk away knowing you are a follower of Jesus?  Not because you’ve told them, but because you’ve shown them, they’ve seen it in you?
 
It’s easy to become a Christian.  But to walk with Christ is a little more difficult.  How are you doing?