Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 5, 2020 | Stand Strong - Thanks for Asking, But...

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January 5, 2020 | Stand Strong - Thanks for Asking, But... · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:02
SPEAKER_01: Business are those who are persecuted because of righteousness that prevails with the king to her heaven, heaven, heaven, heaven with a soul as bold as lion and a strength to face the giant Come and join us on the side for the king who saves the wood here the voices and the same.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: In case you weren't here last week, that's what we're doing.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series, the Jeremiah Challenge, and our theme is Stand Strong.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Last week was, this is the official first week of the Jeremiah series.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Last week was sort of a prologue.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: You should go back, however, and listen to that or watch that.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: If uh you're gonna jump on board with us, that's my sales talk for jumping on board was last week.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you were there and you want to say no to me, no.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: So uh but so today I'm excited.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: This is the official beginning, Jeremiah chapter one, and I want to talk to you today about unwanted invitations and reluctant heroes.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Unwanted invitations and reluctant heroes I received, and I am holding it in my hand right now.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm holding an unwanted invitation that I received this week.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: I opened my mail and I saw an official bit of stationery from the city of Topeka, municipal court.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: And in dark print, and underlined are the words, a warrant has been issued for your arrest.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Dark print would have been enough, but by underlining, they made sure that I would see that.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And they invited me to come downtown this month and face my medicine, or there would be drastic consequences, basically.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: As I read the letter, it seemed as though it was saying go directly to jail, do not Basco, do not collect$200.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: But in the corner it mentions speeding, and it says that I'd better get in there or my uh driver's license would be suspended.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And I remembered.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: I remembered that I had been caught in a sting at the end of November, that there had been a speed trap on 10th Street going east just before, you know, it comes up into McVicker.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: That after lunch that I had uh been waved over by uh there was a there was a coterie of uh of of Topeka's finest hidden behind some bushes, and they were holding out their radar guns, and so I pulled into the side street and made my way halfway up uh with the other half dozen cars, and uh and probably said the same thing as I rolled down the window to the uh gendarme who approached the window.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: I said, uh, really, I was speeding.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he said, not much, but you were.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And I remembered that, and I remembered that well, and I remember driving to the church, and I remembered thinking, well, we've all got to make our contribution periodically, and I wrote out a check immediately and put it in the mail.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking, I'm sure I did that within an hour of having gotten the citation, and so then I looked up online with the bank and found out they had cashed my check as well uh in a few days, late November.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: So I'm feeling pretty cocky.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And uh I shouldn't have been, but I was, and I called downtown.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: I located the phone number and I called downtown, asked to speak somebody, finally got a live voice, and I said, uh I'm surprised to get a letter saying that I weren't for uh my rest and so forth.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: And here's a citation.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Would you mind looking it up?
7:34
SPEAKER_00: I think there may have been some mistake.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh, she says there's been no mistake.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, wrote the check immediately, and it appears as though you've cashed it.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, she said, we're holding that check as a bond because the issue, and I'm thinking you're not holding it anywhere, you cash it.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, she said, uh she said, um you signed the back of the form, but you didn't check the box saying that you would not appeal.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: And I assume I said, well, I kind of assumed that the check would let you know that I wasn't appealing.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And she said, well, yes, that was the way it always has been, but this year we added a policy saying that if that box wasn't checked, that then we would we would you know pursue that.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: And so we sent out a letter uh to you.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: She said we mailed a letter to you asking you to come down, sign your name, tell us you wouldn't go to court.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: I said, I didn't receive that letter, at least have no record of that letter.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, she said, then after 30 days, then we issue a warrant for your arrest, so we would invite you to come downtown, sign your name, and pay the$25 fee to dismiss the warrant for your arrest.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: I said, really?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: So um I said this is interesting.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: I said, um, and then I told her that I spend no dime before it's time.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't say that, but I said uh I went down the next morning.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh but anyway, I said to her, so I'm just a little surprised at this.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: So is there any sort of uh possibility of relief for something, somebody in my poor victimized case?
9:16
SPEAKER_00: And and she said, Well, you could appeal to a judge.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: So I went down the next morning, and uh you will be happy to know, or maybe relieved, that your pastor is not going to jail anytime soon.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: I have an official statement from the city of Topeka saying there's no longer a warrant out for my arrest.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: And uh a judge did dismiss the$25 fee.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: But yes, yes.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: So no plause needed.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you check the box on the back of your new citation.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but that was, shall we say, an unwelcome or an unwanted invitation.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of the invitations that we get uh we're not excited about, but they're not that scary.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: I think I wrote on your bulletin or whatever, there are invitations that that come to us that we're not really excited about, like will you watch my kids um while I run to the store and then take a vacation to Hawaii?
10:14
SPEAKER_00: So um invitations like that, or will you know help me confront our father about his drinking, or will you help me take down the decorations, or will you lead the Bible study this week?
10:25
SPEAKER_00: There are invitations that we get that are not all that welcome, they're not that bad.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: The moment you were asked, though, you felt like blurting out, no, no, or maybe being more polite.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, but no thanks.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: But your gut whispered, you know, you really maybe should do something about that.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you should say yes.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is something you should do.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And to all of us who know Jesus as our Savior, the Lord sometimes allows people to come up to us who ask us if we would consider doing something.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes a small thing, like watching the kids for them, sometimes a little bit larger, like helping them lead a Bible study this week or standing in for them, you know, in the second grade class.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes bigger, would you join us in that uh overseas short-term missions trip down to Haiti?
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes huge.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Would you consider uh adopting or taking in foster care children?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Would you consider being a missionary?
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we receive those invitations, and most of the time I would guess that we are, shall we say, um reluctant.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Because they are unwanted, unwelcome invitations.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And that brings me to the flip side, which is that sometimes people who say yes to unwanted invitations become what we call reluctant heroes.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: We know about these from books and from movies.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: John Wayne, most of the old cowboys, the Clint Eastwoods, were at times reluctant heroes, and of course, we know about more modern reluctant heroes.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Peter Parker is generally a reluctant hero, as Spider-Man.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Neil was in Matrix, John McClain was, remember Die Hard.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And certainly, in we are in in um Star Wars screaming uh, you know, um uh you know, fame right now.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the great reluctant hero on Star Wars, Hansolo, for good reason.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: He, I think he was on the run from the law, and uh so he didn't want his ship used.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: But there are reluctant heroes, and in real life, I have a distant relative, one of my younger sisters was named after him, named Sergeant Alvin York, who was actually a pacifist.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Growing up in East Tennessee, a sharpshooter of animals, but did not believe in shooting at people, but felt as though God had told him to say yes, that he should go overseas, but try to avoid killing Germans in World War I.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: But then when everyone around him was getting shot, he used his sharpshooter ability to pick off more than 25 Germans and then uh uh take their gun nest, machine gun nest, and 130-some captives and got a medal of honor for it.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: There are reluctant heroes in life, and sometimes when we say yes to what God wants us to say yes to, we become reluctant heroes.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And they are reluctant heroes in the Bible.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: You're familiar, of course, with Moses, who really didn't want to do that job.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: And Gideon, Samson, Solomon, today we have a reluctant hero on one of the famous chapters of the Bible, Jeremiah chapter one.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: We are in the series going through the 52 chapters of Jeremiah plus the five of Lamentations.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like you to join me in taking the Jeremiah Challenge this week.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Your assignment is to read chapters one, two, three, and four.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like, I would encourage you to go through the daily devotionals that I'm gonna write on those four chapters.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: One of them is already posted, the one on chapter one.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: And I hope you'll go with me through this book, which seems so absolutely appropriate for this time that we live in.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Because Jeremiah was living in a time where there was a lot of brutality, a lot of bloodshed, where there were nations fighting against nations, and as you know, the great terrorist, in a sense, in all the world, the greater than Osama bin Laden, who had retired in a sense when we caught him, was killed this last week.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: We we nailed him in Iraq, and while that's a good thing, all of our overseas troops are on absolute high alert, and we're sending thousands more over because we recognize there is the possibility, though improbable, that a war will break out overseas.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: So there are all kinds of things happening overseas.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Israel's in the middle of very testy elections, and of course, America is going to be in the middle of, well, is already in the middle of one.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: So, and and Europe is upset over Brexit.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: So we live in the kind of times that Jeremiah lived in.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: And my message this morning about reluctant heroes and unwelcome invitations is thanks for asking.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: But all right.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Last week we went quickly through Jeremiah 1, 1 through 3.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: I'll just remind you that this book is full of the words of Jerry.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, he was a priest, one of the priests living in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin, and we said that was about three miles north of Jerusalem.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: It's certain that as he grew up in this Levitical town, that Jerry, little Jeremiah, walked with his daddy the three three plus miles down to Jerusalem every day.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: As his dad worked in the temple, and that with his dad, he walked around and he met the big, the famous priests and the not so famous priests and all the people that cleared up the sacrifices after they were offered and washed the temple out and so forth.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: So he grew up as the son of a priest living in a small town called Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: It's clear that as he grew up in the last days of Judah, it was called, that's the southern kingdom, two tribes, Judah and the little tribe of Benjamin, which he lived in, it's clear that he had read all of the his father and mother taught him about Isaiah a hundred years before, and about David, and about Moses, and all of these stories.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah knew the Bible well.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: But the word of the Lord came to him in the 13th year of the reign of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: The fact that this was the reign of Josiah was a good thing because he was the best king since King David.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And it was in the 13th year, 627 BC.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: There's an argument over how old Jerry himself was at that time.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I side with the majority of the experts who think that he was 16 or 17 years old.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: The guesses go from 12 to about 24.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: But it's clear that he was not expecting this word from the Lord, that this was, shall we say, an unwelcome invitation.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: And he got this invitation.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe he was outside, maybe he was on his own returning from Jerusalem up to his home.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord spoke to him.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And he got this word about being a prophet, and this word lasted through over 40 years, through the last five kings of Judah: Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, and Jehoiach.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: And these four were sons and grandsons of Josiah, and they were all as bad or worse than Josiah was good.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: And Jeremiah was the prophet during all of them, and even after, during the deportation to Babylon and his deportation down to Egypt.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: But the call, this unwelcome invitation by God, comes to him in verses 4 through 10 of chapter 1, and it goes like this: the word of the Lord came to me.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Famous phrase.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: I talked about it last week, word of the Lord.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: It's the second time it appears already in the first four verses.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: It will appear over 40 times in this book, half of the times that it appears in the entire Old Testament.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: And here's what God says to him.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: He says, I chose you before I formed you in the womb.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: I set you apart before you were born.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: I appointed you a prophet to the nation.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we're going to be literal about this, the actual word here is I knew you.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations say that.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a very intimate statement.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: I made you holy literally, or set you apart.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Made you holy to myself means I set you apart to me before you were born.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about the importance of that statement in a minute, but this had to come as a total shock to a boy who's growing up expecting that he's going to be a priest.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Up till about 1960, everyone sort of became what their father was.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: If your father ran a store, you took over the store.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: If your father was a farmer, you became a farmer if you were the son.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: But back in the old days, back in the early 1900s and all the time before that, and especially back in Jeremiah's day, you just took over in your father's shoes.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure Jeremiah expected to be a priest.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Being a priest was a pretty straightforward job.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it was easy, but it was my job.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: A priest primarily taught the Word of God.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: That's the most spiritual thing we could say he did.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: He was also an administrator because he was the one in charge of the sacrifices that were brought to the temple and in charge of the offerings that were brought to the temple, and he set up the services in which he would speak.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: He administered the services, and there were some priests who were musical and they led the worship.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: So it was something we know about.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Being a priest is a job that we pretty much know about, other than the bloody sacrifices and that kind of stuff.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: But all of a sudden, God is saying, you know what?
19:46
SPEAKER_00: That job that you think you're going into, you're not going into because I've appointed you a prophet.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't think that there's much difference between prophets and priests, but there was a huge difference.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Priests got to live at home, priests got up in the morning, priests had an understandable job.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Prophets oftentimes weren't allowed to get married.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Jerry wasn't.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Prophets had to travel around.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Prophets waited for a fresh word from God that came right, zapped right through them, and they had to speak it.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And they oftentimes had to speak it to people that didn't want to hear it.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Some of the famous and strong people, the big muckety mugs, the leaders, the state officials, the kings, and they had to make people mad.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: And so this was not a welcome invitation.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Certainly not for someone like Jeremiah who we're going to find out is compassionate and he's sensitive and he's a nice guy and he's friendly and probably would have liked to have spent the rest of his life going to basketball games on Saturdays and hanging out with his buds on Sunday night.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: So I just threw that in.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: That's really not true.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: None of it is true.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: I just made that up.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't part of the sermon.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: So forget it.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: But you know, we do know that he was a relaxed kind of a guy and he gets his feelings hurt throughout life.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: This is not what he expected, but this is what the Lord tells him he's going to do.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, I I should say before I move on that even though this is not the point this morning, you need to know that Jeremiah 1.5 is one of the great pro-life verses in the Bible.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: One of the top two or three.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: You've heard of Psalm 139.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: But to have a statement that before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Before you were born, I set you apart, tells us something, doesn't it?
21:24
SPEAKER_00: It tells us that before you're even formed in the womb, from the moment of conception, and while you're being formed, but before you were born, you are actually a sentient being.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: You actually can be known.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: You actually can be loved.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: God can actually, you know, know all about you.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: So just to remind you that this is a reminder that an unborn child is an unborn child.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: But of course, what we're talking about here is the call of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah protests.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah goes, Whoa, got the wrong dude here, right?
21:58
SPEAKER_00: For a number of reasons.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: But I protest and don't know, Lord God.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Look, I don't know how to speak.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: I've never been a public speaker.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm only a young person.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm only a teenager.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 1:7.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord totally brushes aside his objection and says, Don't say I'm only a youth, for you're going to go to everyone I send to you, and you're going to speak whatever I tell you.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid of anyone, for I'll be with you to rescue you.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord's declaration.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord reached out his hand, touched my mouth.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: That reminds you of a year ago.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah reminds you a little of Isaiah, who was in the temple and saw the glory of the Lord filling the temple, and the angel reaches out, remember, with a hot coal and touches his mouth.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: So we have this picture of how they're going to have a verbal ministry, these prophets do.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: Their mouths, as inadequate as they feel their speech is, the Lord reaches out and touches the mouth and says, I have now filled your mouth with my words.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Not yours, mine.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: We looked at this verse in detail last week.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 1.10, perhaps the key verse in the book.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: God says, See, I have appointed you today over nations and kingdoms to do six things, three pairs, to uproot and tear down, to destroy and demolish, to build and plant.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Notice the ratio here.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Four negatives, two positives.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: You may also notice, those of you who like structure, that uproot is the exact opposite of plant, that teardown is the exact opposite of build.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: It's called a chiasm.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: But you have uproot and tear down, destroy and demolish, build and plant.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: No doubt Jeremiah would much rather have gone around giving out good and happy news.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: But two-thirds of his messages, clearly, are going to be negative.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: And these phrases reappear in the book three, four times in the book.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: You'll have four of these six words that are simply repeated.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: And that's why a lot of people believe that this is the key verse in the book.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk to you.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: I want to apply this to our lives because none of us is Jeremiah.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: None of us has been called to be a prophet.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: None of us has, you know, exactly the same thing.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: And I disagree with the, you know, with the sermons that you can find that somehow say that what happened to Jeremiah is exactly what happens to us, because it isn't.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: God hasn't touched us personally on the mouth.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't audibly speak to most of us, telling us that we're going to be prophets.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: However, when you compare this to the calls of Moses, and that's the call of Jeremiah, is most like the call of Moses in the Bible, or the call of Gideon, or the call of Samson, or the call of Solomon, or the call of Jesus, or the calls of the New Testament, you find that there are a number of things and a number of times that God says, I'm going to whisper in your ear, I want you to do this.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And how you respond is really important to me.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: It may be an unwanted invitation, but I might want to make you into a reluctant hero.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: So one of the objections that we tend to have, and generally the first one that arises in our gut, when someone asks us to do something, something perhaps small, like, will you help me start a new Bible study?
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Or will you help me confront our brother about his drug use?
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe something bigger.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Honey, would you like to talk about maybe taking in a foster child?
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Or do you think we should take the whole family on a short-term missions trip?
25:38
SPEAKER_00: When something like that happens, the first response in most of our gut is it's just way too much to ask.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's just way too demanding.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: I am sure, I am so confident that Jeremiah felt this, but God didn't give him a chance.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even voice it because God speaks first and says, uh, before you happen to respond that you aren't wanting to be a prophet, that you'd really like to get married and have a happy life and watch TV, I'm sorry.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: This is already a done deal.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: I've already chosen you before I formed you, I set you apart, and I've appointed you a prophet to the nations.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: No appeal.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: It's over.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's God's response.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, if if your response to something is this job is too demanding, you can't stop there because you need to say, well, is this really from God?
26:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is this something God really wants me to do?
26:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is certainly how I felt in in 1977 in December when I was approached about being, as a single person, being a lead person, the lead pastor of this church.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: This and I actually voiced it, you know, at that time.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: And they said, sorry, we chose you before.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: No, they didn't say anything like that.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: So, but anyway, so that's one objection.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Here's the second objection that he does voice very clearly.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm too young.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Or our objection in this case might be the time's really not right for me, you know.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Which works if somebody invites you to their New Year's party and you don't want to go.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: You can say, Oh, the time's not really right.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I had something planned.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Honey, honey, honey, what do we have planned?
27:17
SPEAKER_00: So, you know.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: So, but but Jeremiah's really clear.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm too young.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, teenagers don't go around being prophets, right?
27:28
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord replies, don't say it.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Don't say it.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm only you too late, Lord.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: I did already.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: For you will go to everyone I send you to, and you're gonna speak whatever I tell you.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: One of the hardest things for us is to speak out, right?
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Is to say something out loud.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Because there's, you know, we have trouble with public speaking.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's his third objection.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't have the talent required.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: I certainly identify with this.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, speech is a required course in college, and it's always listed there when you go through, you know, the basic courses.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: It's listed there in your freshman courses that you everybody takes, and I go, nah, no, we're we're not doing that one this year.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: And and then we didn't do it in sophomore year, we didn't do it junior year, and we didn't do it first semester senior year.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Jim, if you want to graduate, you need to take speech.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, I couldn't, I couldn't talk about it.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: I hated speaking in public.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: I was extremely nervous.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: So I took speech, finally, in order to graduate from Wheaton College, but I certainly felt I don't have the talent required.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: If you'd have told me I'd have a speaking career, I would have laughed in your face.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: And I vividly remember what was not a very successful speech, my first speech.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh fortunately, the teacher was gracious to us, and she said, Why don't you just tell us about something you know really well?
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Just tell us how to do it or whatever.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: So for me, it was chess.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll admit I was a dweeb, you know, but I can't demonstrate basketball.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, it was chess, and I had this magnetic chess board I'd used for years, and so I'm holding it there, the chess piece is stuck to it, and I'm explaining the four move made and how the pieces move and so forth.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: But what I didn't realize, why I couldn't understand why there were so many Snickers in the class is that I had a bishop whose magnet had gotten weak.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: And so, as I would be holding this up and explaining and so forth, I had a bishop that was making its own way slowly down the board.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And and they'd be looking at it and they'd be smiling, and I'm thinking, no, chess is a really serious game, man.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, let's let's go with this.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: This is a big deal.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And and by the time I found that, you know, that ruined the rest of my speech.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: I graduated, I got to graduate from college, but it certainly wasn't due to the D that I got in speech.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: So, so thanks for asking, but I don't have the talent required, and that's how he felt.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: He said, I've never been a public speaker.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: You're asking me to go around and travel around and somehow give your words.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: And God again gives a promise.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Again says, you know, I'll meet that objection by giving you a promise.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And here's my promise.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: He reached out his hand, touched my mouth, and said, I've now filled your mouth with my words.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to come up with it, you don't have to write the speech.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you the words, let them come out of your mouth.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And listen, I have a I'll admit that I have a little bit of a problem with most of the sermons that I've read, most of the practical devotionals that I've read on this chapter, where Jeremiah gets roasted for giving objections.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Or back at Moses is roasted for giving his excuses.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't understand.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, most of us, I don't know about you, but we feel inadequate.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: And what's wrong with that, really?
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when it comes to Solomon who prays and says, I'm too young to take this, Lord, help me, give me wisdom, we all go, thumbs up, Solomon, but when it comes to Moses or Jeremiah, we go, you're a jerk, you shouldn't ever, you know, make excuses.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: No, I agree with Hudson Taylor, God uses men and women who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And if you feel weak and feeble and inadequate and ungifted, not really able and young, join the club.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: I think you're right where God wants you to be.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians chapter 12, my strength is made perfect in what?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Weakness.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: There were two of you, I think that said, that's good.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: God uses men and women who are weak and feeble.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: And the fourth thing, uh, we don't actually hear this until later in the chapter, but but is God, it's not my thing.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we did an Enneagram on Jeremiah the other day, and he turns out not, I don't even know those numbers.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: I just said that because it's pretty cool.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: So uh just to let you know that I'm, and I probably pronounced Enneagram wrong, but um, clearly Jeremiah is not whatever number it is that would be bold and dominant, stand out in front and be tough.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah is, wow, I I shouldn't even quote this, but there's one scholar that said uh he had the insides of a girl and the outsides of a man, or something like that, which I don't even want to think about that.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: But what it's trying, what he was trying to say is that this guy is really a sensitive guy who doesn't like to hurt people's feelings, and God's telling him, your job is gonna be unpopular, you're gonna make things mad.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna make people mad.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: And he you panic.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: He says, I panic.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, I can't stand in front of people.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: When I look at people and I see them frowning at me, I panic.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: And the response in verses 8 and 19 is, don't be afraid of anyone, for I'm gonna be with you, that's a promise, to rescue you, that's a promise.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: And this is the Lord's declaration.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: That's a promise from the Lord.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord's whispering to you that he wants you to get involved and he wants you to get involved in something that involves speaking or sharing, his promise is we know from the New Testament as well, I will be with you and I will rescue you, don't fear.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah clearly repeatedly was saying, I'm a nobody, nobody will listen, I'm too young.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord replies, Listen, I've appointed you today.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: You are going to be, you have my authority, my authority over nations and kingdoms.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: You are my mouthpiece over the entire world during your lifetime to do amazing things, right?
33:15
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be a hero in heaven.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm a nobody.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Nobody will listen.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, that may be true, but I'm gonna take care of you.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: And I take it that finally the objection that we offer, that Jeremiah offered, is really, do I have to do it now?
33:29
SPEAKER_00: Could I wait five years?
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Could I wait ten years?
33:32
SPEAKER_00: And we find the last three verses of the chapter, the answer to do I have to do it now, with a threefold charge from the Lord.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: First, he says, roll up your sleeves.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I decided to depart from the Christian Standard Bible and give you the correct Bible for a moment to give you the real Hebrew stuff, okay?
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Now the Hebrew doesn't say roll up your sleeves, it says gird up your loins.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's why your translations say something like brace yourself or get ready, which is so blah.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: So gird up your loins, as you know.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: They wore robes back then and they couldn't run races and they couldn't work really hard and they couldn't move fast unless they pulled up the bottom of their robe and tied it, you know, with a rope or something.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: That was girding up their loins.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: We don't do that today, and so we would say, roll up your sleeves, right?
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Roll up your sleeves, get ready to go.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Number two, stand up and tell them everything I command you.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Stand up and tell them everything I command you.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Or, as we're gonna find often in this book, stand strong.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to, you want to stay home, you want to become a priest.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to stand up.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: No sitting down, no lying down.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have to stand strong and you're gonna have to open your mouth, you're gonna have to speak boldly.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: Christ has called each of us twice, folks.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: This may not be true, but this is what came to me, okay?
34:53
SPEAKER_00: He's called us and he said, Come unto me.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: And you came to him in salvation.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: You trusted him as your savior.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: And now he's got another command for you.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: From come to me, it's now go you.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to speak.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: I know you don't feel like it.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: I know those people next to you, you know they need the gospel, but you're terrified of that, tend to be panicked about that.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, God's not just whispering, he's saying it really loudly.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: The Great Commission is not an option, it's a commandment.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: You need to think about how God wants you involved in the Great Commission.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: You either need to be sending or going or participating in some way.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I say you need to stand strong and you need to speak out.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: And third, and again, this is a literal translation of the Hebrew.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: I notice your Bible says something like, uh, don't be intimidated by them, or I'll make you cower before them.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: It uses the same word.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: It's just like this: don't be panicked by their faces, or I'll panic you by their faces.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: I read this, I go.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: I know where Dad got that line.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: You want to cry?
35:58
SPEAKER_00: I'll make you cry.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, God, it just feels like that.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: But that's, you know, don't be panicked by them, or I'm gonna panic you by their faces.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: So those are the three commands, and God's really serious about that.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: If you decide you're not gonna stand strong and speak out because you get scared of people, remind yourself of Proverbs 29, 25.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: The fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18, for my part, God says, See, I made you today into three things a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall against the whole land.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: That fortified city that you love, Jerusalem, it's not gonna stand.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna make you stand, Jeremiah.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna stand longer than Jerem than Jerusalem will.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna need to stand because you're going against the big muckety mucks, you're going against the big cheeses, you're gonna be going against the kings and state officials and priests that your dad and you know so well.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be making them mad, you're gonna become unpopular, they're gonna plot to kill you, they're gonna dump you in a well.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: And, oh, by the way, the rest of the people of the land aren't gonna like you very much either.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna make you into a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: There he is, the weeping prophet crying over the fall of Jerusalem.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't feel like, he doesn't sound like, as you go through his book, A Fortified City, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: But God says, that's what I'm making you.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: And they're going to fight against you, yes, they will, but they will not overcome you.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: No, they won't, because I am with you and will rescue you.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: And that's my word.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: That's the word of Yahweh.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: So God's God's whispered something to you.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: I know He has, and if not, He's going to this week.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: And it may be something small, maybe something little, like will you watch your neighbor's children take over a pie or something else, and maybe something bigger?
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Will you help with the three-year-olds?
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Will you plan to go on a short-term missions trip this summer?
38:01
SPEAKER_00: It may actually be something huge.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: Will you consider adopting a child?
38:06
SPEAKER_00: Will you confront that person in your life that you're scared to confront?
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Will you share the gospel with someone at work?
38:14
SPEAKER_00: It may be absolutely huge.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: Will you even consider going overseas to be a foreign missionary?
38:19
SPEAKER_00: But if he's whispering that to you, feel free to feel inadequate, but keep talking with him.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Allow him to tell you that he'll be with you and he'll rescue you.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: If this is something he wants, he'll take care of it.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, how many of you have heard the same story I've heard about couples who've gone overseas, say to Haiti on a short-term mission trip?
38:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, they say something like this Well, you know, I heard the church calling, you know, for people to go down to Haiti, and you know, and I thought, well, we'll give money, we'll help out.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I was praying the next day, and it was like the Lord whispered to me, he said, Why don't you consider going?
38:53
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I'm not young and I hate sweating, and I like good food, and I don't like, you know, camping out and any of that stuff.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: And yet the Lord kept nagging at me.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: The Lord kept nagging at me.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: And then I talked to my husband.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: You've heard you've heard people say this, and my husband said the very same things I did.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: I hate flying, I hate getting in flights, and I hate sweating, and I don't know what in the world we would do anyway.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: And so I went back to the Lord, and the Lord said, Um, I can use you.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: I'll be with you.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: Trust me.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: So I went back to my husband, and my husband said, Wow, okay, if we have to talk about it, we'll talk about it.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: And I and I told my husband, you know, the Lord seemed to say to me, I can use you.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: I'll be with you, trust me.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: And somehow my husband and I both agreed to go down to Haiti, and there we went down there, and we couldn't believe it, those orphanage children, we were able to play with them, we were able to help in the medical clinic, we were able to do this and that, things that we didn't really think we could do, and through a translator we did other things.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: And we came back and we thought later, wow, you know, the flight wasn't that bad, and the food wasn't absolutely that bad, and we didn't like sweating, but you know what?
39:55
SPEAKER_00: We felt like we really got something done.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: And then they say to you something like, and the next morning I got up early and I went back to the Lord and I said, Lord, thank you so much, so much, that you overcame my objections.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: And then I did go down there with my husband.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: We had such a good time.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: I felt like the Lord said to me, I used you.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: And I was with you, and you trusted me.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: You were a reluctant hero.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: You can be a reluctant hero even when you get unwelcome invitations.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Bow your head with me in prayer.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Father, we come to you at the Lord's table, looking forward to sitting with you around this table, telling you that, yeah, uh, we will go where you want us to go.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Say what you want us to say.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Surrender all.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: We'll do that.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: But please understand it's not easy and we do feel inadequate.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your promises to be with us and to rescue us.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Amen.