Jeremiah 11:1-12:17 “The Grieving and Gracious Heart of our Faithful God”

1:33I'm sure he's okay with it. I'd like to change it from what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. I'd like to update that to this. What comes into our minds and what we feel in our hearts when we think about God's heart towards us is the most important thing about us. What comes into our minds, what we feel in our hearts when we think about God's heart towards us is the most important thing about us.

2:16You see, if there is one thing that God wants you and me to know and to feel deep in our bones as we look at Jeremiah chapter 11 and 12 this morning, it is his heart for his people, his grieving and gracious heart for his people. This was certainly the primary thing that God wanted the Israelites to see with absolute clarity because he knew what they were about to experience. He knew that they would experience his judgment, that they would experience the exile being sent out of the land. And as they walked through these very difficult and challenging things, God does. Want them to forget how he feels towards them. This was crucial for Israel then, and it's just as important for you and me today. We desperately need to know God's heart for us, because all too often, or at least for me, when I experience God's discipline, when things happen in my life that I think are God's punishment for something I've done or something I haven't done, as we just confessed, one of the first things I can do is question God's heart for me.

3:41In the quiet of my mind, I think things that I would never say out loud. Perhaps you can relate. I can think that God's given up on me. I can think that maybe he just doesn't like me or care about me anymore. Or maybe I can think that I've just finally crossed the line and I've placed myself beyond his love for me. Have you ever been there? You there right now? As you contemplate God's discipline on your sin, or when you look at the details or the circumstances of your life, are you ever tempted to question how God feels towards you? I think the truth is that we have all been there, and if we're not. There, right now, it's only a matter of time before we find ourselves there again. And God, in His grace, has given us this passage to help us. Specifically, here in Jeremiah chapter 11 and 12, God wants to help us as he reveals His heart to us so that we might turn our hearts to Him. That's our main point this morning. God, in this passage, is wanting to reveal His heart to us so that we will turn our hearts to Him. Here, God reveals His gracious and grieving heart so that we will turn our hearts back to Him. You see, God knows that true heart change doesn't come merely when we experience His discipline or His judgment alone, but true heart change comes when we come to see and to know His heart of grace and love for us. That is when true change happens. And so, in our sermon this morning, we are going to walk through this passage and we are going to see God's grieving heart for His faithless people and the gracious heart of our faithful God.

5:46I do hope it goes without saying, but I'm gonna, but I am not gonna be able to cover every verse in these two chapters. I'm not gonna be able to draw out everything that there is to see, but I'm going to look at this passage as we will go through. Work through this passage, I'm going to be looking at it, seeking to focus on and to draw out God's heart for us, knowing that he wants to reveal his heart to us so that we will turn our hearts to him. So, our first point this morning, which takes up the bulk of our passage, Jeremiah 11:1 through 12, 13, in our first point, we see God's grieving heart for his faithless people. As our passage opens, God seeks to remind the people of their history and how they first entered into a relationship with him. Follow along as I read in chapter 11, starting in verse 1.

6:43The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man who does not hear the words of this covenant that I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God. That I may confirm the oath that I swore to your fathers to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then I am. Answered, so be it, Lord. Here in these verses, God shows us how he took the initiative to enter into a relationship with the people. Look again at verse 4. He says, He says, that I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. Here, God is wanting to signal to his people, he's wanting them to see that he is the one who took initiative in this relationship. When they were in Egypt, suffering under slavery, God was the one who took initiative to go and to redeem and to save them from slavery. And as we see also at the end of verse 4, it is not just any relationship that God desires to have with the Israelites, but he desires to have an intimate relationship with them. The end of verse 4, God says, So shall you be my people, and I will be your God.

8:30This is a phrase that runs throughout the Bible, and it speaks to the intimate relationship with God that people were created to experience. His desire here is that the Israelites would be his people and that he would be their God. And so, here at the outset of this passage, we see God's heart for his people, a love that saved them from Egypt and called them to be in an intimate relationship with him. However, as we have heard the last few weeks, and as we're going to see very clearly in our passage, in spite of God's pursuing love for the nation, the people don't return God's love. Instead, they rebel against him. Hear what God says in verse 9. He says, again, the Lord said to me, a conspiracy exists among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The people's sin here is so bad that God says there must be a conspiracy. The people must have gotten together, plotted together all of the ways that they were going to sin against God. And verse 10 goes on to unpack what this conspiracy looks like. Follow along. It says, they have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them.

10:00The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their fathers. The people's sin here has reached such a great magnitude that God says they have broken his covenant. Now, this is more than just they've sinned, more than just they've disobeyed here or there, more than just that they have messed up. But in saying that they have broken the covenant, God is saying that they have annoyed. Or they have canceled the relationship that they had with him. In breaking God's covenant, the people have broken their relationship with God. In breaking the covenant, they have broken and cut themselves off from the intimate relationship that God saved them to enjoy and to experience with him.

10:54Jeremiah, in verse 11, Jeremiah makes this cut-off relationship clear, where he says, Behold, I am bringing disaster upon them, and they cannot escape. Though they cry to me, I will not listen to them. Such a terrifying statement. Such a terrifying place to be, to have God say that he will not listen, he will not hear your prayers. Not only that, but once again, as we saw last week here in verse 14, he commands Jeremiah to not even pray for these people. In breaking the relationship, they have broken, or in breaking the covenant, they have broken their relationship with him. They have betrayed and rejected him, and here we see that God has cut them off from relationship. Now, in the verses that follow, God is going to unpack the judgment that the people are going to experience. He's going to unpack. What this judgment looks like. But before we get to the heart of what this judgment looks like, I think we need to pause. We need to slow down here to reflect on God's heart towards His people. You see, it's important that we do this because if you're anything like me, it can just be so easy for us to read these verses, so easy for us to hear God's judgment on His people, and just to picture one of two things happening: we can picture God just coldly and emotionlessly passing judgment on His people, or we can picture God just flying off the handle in a blind rage, punishing Israel in His anger. But neither of these things could be farther from the truth. In this passage, we see that God's just judgment of Israel flows from His grieving heart for them.

13:00God reveals His grieving heart to Israel in two ways. First, with an illustration that gets played out in Jeremiah's life, and secondly, in His broken-hearted judgment on His people. So, first, to better understand God's heart, let's see this illustration that gets played out in Jeremiah's life. After delivering a sermon in chapter 11, verses 1 through 17, beginning in verse 18, We see the people's response to Jeremiah's sermon. And as you might expect, they don't take these words very well. Follow along as I read verses 18 and 19.

13:45This is Jeremiah speaking. He says, The Lord made it known to me, and I knew. Then you showed me their deeds. But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes, saying, Let us destroy the tree with its fruit. Let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more. Hearing the words of Jeremiah, the people respond with a secret plot to kill him. As he says here in verse 18, he was like a lamb who had no clue that he was being led to the slaughter. But rather than allow him to be killed, as verse 18 says, God made it known to him. God reveals to Jeremiah this secret plot of the people to kill him. And beginning in chapter 12, verse 1, we see Jeremiah's response. We see this glimpse inside of Jeremiah's heart as he responds to this news that his people want to kill him. In verse 1, he says, Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complete. To you. Yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? You plant them, and they take root. They grow and produce fruit. You are near in their mouth and far from their heart. But you, O Lord, know me. You see me and test my heart toward you. Pull them out like a sheep for the slaughter and set them apart for the day of slaughter. Jeremiah here, he isn't calm, cool, and collected, hearing the people's plot to kill him. No, he is emotionally moved by these people's plot to kill him, and so he cries out to God. Actually, here, as we see in verse 1, he doesn't cry out to God. He complains to God.

15:58Now, before we move on and look at the reason why Jeremiah is so moved, I just want to take a moment to highlight something here in this passage that I think is pastorally important for us to see in these verses. And that's here, is that it's okay to complain to God. I think here, as we look at Jeremiah 12, verse 1, God is giving us permission to complain to him. Jeremiah here shows us that we don't have to pretend like. Everything in life is always okay, all of the time. We don't have to put a smiling face on no matter what we're walking through in this life. Here we see that God wants us to bring all of our emotions to Him in all of their raw honesty. God doesn't want us holding back or feeling like we have to be guarded in our wording from Him or in our wording to Him, afraid that we're somehow going to hurt His feelings. God is a big boy, as it were, and He can handle our complaints. As Jeremiah says, God is righteous when we complain to Him. And as we do this, as we follow Jeremiah's example, we see that we really are just following in the footsteps of the psalmist who cry out and complain to God all the time. We're following in the example of the psalmist who question God as they ask Him, How long, O Lord? As they ask Him, Have you forgotten to be gracious?

17:42The scriptures are just chock full of God's people complaining to Him, aware that in this fallen world, as we have sin in our hearts, as we are sinned against, as we live in our fallen and broken world, just bad things happen, and when those happen, God involves God. us to complain to him. God invites us to cry out our hearts to him, to pour them out before him, knowing that he cares for us, that he wants to hear what we have to say. So for all of those here who can relate with Jeremiah this morning, all of those here who are walking through painful and challenging things, I just want to encourage you to let Jeremiah's example free you to bring your complaint to God. Bear your heart to him. Know that he loves you and he wants to hear your complaints. All right. Well, thank you for letting me say that there. So returning to where we were, here in Jeremiah's, here in Jeremiah's complaint in verses 1 through 4, we see Jeremiah passionately complaining to God, asking him to do to the people what they wanted to do to him. As we saw in chapter 11, 18, we see that Jeremiah says he was like a lamb being led to the slaughter. And here in chapter 12, verse 3, Jeremiah asks God to set the people apart for the day of slaughter. Now we need to ask: what was it that was driving Jeremiah to respond in this way? What was it that moved him to respond with such passion against these people? Well, we get our answer in verse 6 when God, replying to Jeremiah, Jeremiah's complaint, he says, for even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you. They are in full cry after you. Do not believe them, though they speak friendly words to you.

19:50Why was Jeremiah so moved? Well, as we see here, it is because it is Jeremiah's own family. It's his brothers, those of the house of his father, who were secretly plotting to kill him. It was those who were closest to him, those who he loved more than anyone else in the world, who had betrayed and rejected him. Can you imagine what this would feel like? Can you imagine what Jeremiah is experiencing here? To find out that those who should have been in his corner, those who should have been supporting him, having his back, those are the very people who have turned on him. They are the very people that he loves with all of his heart. They are the ones who have turned and who now want to kill him. I think Jeremiah's experience here just highlights one of the greatest challenges and ironies of all of life. And that is that the closest relationships that we have with others are the ones that have the power. Potential for the deepest and most fulfilling experiences of love and joy that we can ever experience. But as so many of us know and have experienced, as Jeremiah here experiences in chapter 12, our closest relationships also have the potential for the deepest and most painful experiences of grief and agony that we will ever feel. Here we see that it's the closeness of Jeremiah's relationship with his family that's caused their betrayal to hurt so badly. And this is exactly what God is experiencing too with the people of Israel. Remember, Jeremiah's experience here is meant to be a living illustration of what God was experiencing. In the same way that this was personal and heartbreaking for Jeremiah to hear that his family, those he loved, had betrayed and rejected him. Here we see that it was personal and heartbreaking for God because it was the people that he loved, the people that he sought out, the people that he desires to be in an intimate relationship with. Those are the very people who have rejected him. Those are the very people who have betrayed him and his word.

22:31And it just breaks God's heart. We can hear God's grief as he begins pronouncing his judgment on his people in Jeremiah 12, verses 7 and 8. Hear what God says. He says, I have forsaken my house. I have abandoned my heritage. I have given the beloved of my soul, the beloved of my soul, into the hands of her enemies. My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest. She has lifted up her voice against me. Therefore, I hate her.

23:27My house, my heritage, the beloved of my soul. God wants us to see his heart, to feel his grief, to know that his just judgment on his faithless people does not flow from a heart of just off-the-charts anger. It doesn't flow from a place of cold, unemotional place. But it flows from a place of deep anguish, deep sorrow, deep grief for the people that he loves so much. Now, you may be wondering: why is it important that we see this? Why does it matter that God's judgment flows from his grieving heart for his people? Well, there are certainly many things that we can say, but I want to highlight two important applications or implications for you and me this morning. First, seeing God's grieving heart, it helps to correct our wrong assumptions about God. You see, it's very common for people today to picture God, especially the so-called God of the Old Testament, as merely an angry, vengeful God, one who responds in blind rage or anger, violently lashing out against people who do anything wrong to him. But as we see here, that couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, God does judge sin. Scripture is absolutely clear on that. But his judgment doesn't come from someone with a short temper, but it comes from a sorrowful God who is grieving the sin and the rebellion of his faithless people because he loves them.

25:30Desires to be in a relationship with them. His goal is that they would be his people and they would be his God. And in their sin and their rebellion, they are turning away from him. So that's the first thing God wants us to see. It's that he just isn't some angry God. But there's a second, I think, implication for us as well. And that's that God reveals his grieving heart to us so that we will turn our hearts to him.

26:00God wants us to see that his judgment, his discipline, ultimately flows from a heart that desires our good. In his excellent book, Gentle and Lowly, Pastor Dane Ortland uses an illustration for God's discipline that I've always found very helpful. In the book, he compares God's loving discipline to physical therapy. As anyone here who's gone through physical therapy knows quite well, when a body part has been injured, it requires the pain and the labor of physical therapy. It could be doing certain stretches, it could be just putting certain weight or pressure on this bone or that. But in doing that, it causes pain to the body. It causes pain to whatever part of the body has been hurt. But while physical therapy hurts, it's not punitive. The doctor's goal isn't simply to make you feel pain. It is to bring healing. It's out of care for the limb that the physical therapy is assigned. And it's the same thing with God's judgment. When we experience His judgment on our sin, it is not ultimately punitive.

27:18God's not smiling and excited that we're finally getting what we're due. No, he is like a medical professional sending us to physical therapy because he knows that while there might be pain involved for our sin, his ultimate goal is for our good. He wants to restore our broken relationship with him. His desire is that in seeing his grieving heart, we will turn our faithless hearts to him. So this morning, I just want to say if you are aware that you perhaps are experiencing God's discipline on your sin this morning, if you are aware of that this morning, I would just encourage you that rather than turning your heart from God, or the hardening your heart towards him, in this passage here, God wants you to see his heart of love for you, his heart of love that disciplines you from a position of grief that you might be restored to him, that you might experience his love for you. This morning, throw yourself into the arms of the God who loves you. And desires an intimate friendship and communion with you. So that's the first thing in our passage that God wants us to see. He wants us to see his grieving heart for his faithless people. But in the final verses of our passage, we see a second facet of God's heart. Because in Jeremiah 12, verses 14 to 17, we see the gracious heart of our faithful God. Follow along as I read these verses. Starting in verse 14, God says, Thus says the Lord, concerning all my evil neighbors, who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit. Behold, I will pluck them up from their land, and I will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. After I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them, and I will bring them again, each to his heritage, and each to his land. And it shall come to pass, if they diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, as the Lord lives, even as they taught my people to swear to Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of my people. But if any nation will not listen, then I will utterly pluck it up and destroy it, declares the Lord. These verses are. Are just utterly remarkable in what they reveal to us of God's heart for his people. Beginning in verse 14, we see God's gracious heart for his people as he promises that he will remove the surrounding nations from the land and he will restore his people to the land once again, having compassion on them. You see that there in verse 15? I will again have compassion on them. Despite the people's sin and rebellion against him, despite their betrayal, like a loving father towards his wayward children, God can't not show compassion to his people. It is just simply not in his nature to not be gracious and merciful and compassionate, slow to anger towards his people. And that is exactly what we see here. We see God's heart for his people, God's heart of compassion that desires that his people be close and near to him. That's what God is getting at in verse 15 when he says that he will bring each of them to his heritage. This heritage here is referring to the people's allotment in the land of promise. And far more than just simply being the place where they live, it is in the land of promise. That is the place where God desires. And where God is present and intimate with his people. You see, while our hearts might tell us that God doesn't really want us around, while our hearts might tell us that he simply tolerates us because he has to, as we see here, that is just simply not true. Despite our sin and our unfaithfulness, God remains gracious and compassionate, seeking to bring us back into his presence, to bring us back to his heritage, where we will be with him, experiencing his grace and his love towards us.

32:11Oh, sisters and brothers, let this picture of God's scandalous grace cause your hearts to turn to him. In this passage here, God is inviting us to see that his commands for us, they flow from a gracious heart that desires our good, a gracious heart that desires us, that desires relationship with us. So I would just encourage you, as you think about your life right now, as perhaps you consider any ways that you know you are tempted to disobey God. If you're anything like me, multiple examples come to mind. It could be seeking to find refuge in things that are not God, looking to things like alcohol or pornography or anything. Any other refuge that we run to when things are hard. It could be pursuing pleasures outside of God's good boundaries for our relationships.

33:10It could be placing our meaning and worth in our accomplishments or in what we've accumulated. It could be just in the ways that we're aware of responding sinfully in anger to those around us. Whatever it is for you, whatever sins that you are aware of, This passage here is inviting us to look to God's gracious heart and to turn to Him. Unless we think that God's compassion extends only to His people, in verse 16, God reveals His gracious heart for the nations. And this is truly one of the most scandalous verses in our entire Bibles. Follow along as I read verse 16 again. God says, and it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, as the Lord lives, even as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of my people. Just imagine that you were the Israelites.

34:18What would you want God to say and do to these nations who have been the means of your punishment for all of these years? These have been the people who have been oppressing you, the people. Who have kicked you out of your land, taken you into exile, what would you want God to say to them? Well, if you're anything like me, you would want God to utterly destroy them. You would want God to pronounce great judgment on them. And while God does promise judgment for those who do not turn from Him, we see that in verse 17, before He says any word about judgment, in verse 16, what God shows us is nothing short of amazing. Because here we see His gracious heart for the surrounding nations in His promise of salvation for all who turn to Him, for all who swear by His name, saying, As the Lord lives.

35:15Even though these people had taught God's people to sin, even though they had caused God's people to turn their hearts away from Him to all of the false gods in the land, God invites them to turn to Him. And what I find so incredible here is that God doesn't require them to clean themselves up before they come. God doesn't tell these nations that they have to wait a little bit, that they have to develop a track record of obeying God before they come. No, here, as we see in verse 16, all that God requires of these surrounding nations, all that God requires of them is that. They feel their need of him, as the great hymn, Come Ye Sinner, says. God has no requirements on these sinful people, no requirements on these people who have turned God's people away, these nations who have worshipped false gods, who have drawn Israel away from God. God comes to them with this free offer of salvation, revealing his heart for them.

36:25Brothers and sisters, you and I serve a God who is gracious beyond anything that we could ever think or imagine. For all of those who are here this morning who think that perhaps you might just be too far gone, who think that perhaps if I've known what you've done or if I knew what's been done to you, that I wouldn't want anything to do with you, let alone God. If you are convinced that there is no way that God could ever desire to be near you, that he would ever want to be around you, yet alone be in an intimate relationship with you. If that's you, God is inviting you this morning to see his gracious heart. God is inviting you to see his heart of compassion that is inviting you to turn to him. There are no waiting periods. There are no probation periods on God's grace. And if this all sounds too good to be true, then that means that you're getting it. That means that it's making sense. This is true because of the good news that we call the gospel. You and I, no matter what we have done, we can be recipients of God's gracious hearts. We can be returned and restored to a relationship of love with him because, unlike Jeremiah, who cried out to God to judge the people who were leading him like a lamb led to the slaughter, as we saw in chapter 11, Jesus did not cry out. Jesus was the lamb led to the slaughter who did not open his mouth, who remained silent on his way to the cross, enduring the punishment that you and I deserved for our sins. So that now, any and all who turn and who trust in him, who trust in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, we will never know his judgment. We will only know his grace. This is the gracious heart of our faithful God for his people. The God that invites all, no matter what you have done, no matter your history, God invites you to return to him. Here in Jeremiah 11 and 12, he is revealing his heart to you that you might turn to him.

38:56I hope that you're seeing why the most important thing is that you are the only one who is Important thing about us is what comes to our minds and what we feel in our hearts when we think about God's heart towards us. Here, God reveals His grieving and gracious heart to us so that we will turn our hearts to Him. Pray with me. Father in heaven, Lord, we come before you and we say thank you. Father, we say, Thank you for revealing your heart that grieves in response to our sin because you desire our good.

39:58You desire the best for us. And so your heart breaks when we turn from you. O Spirit of God, help us to feel your grieving heart for us. That in the midst of our sin, in the midst of the ways we are tempted to turn away from you, Lord, that we might know deeply your heart for us. Father, we thank you for your grace that knows no bounds. Father, your grace that invites us to draw near, to come near, to sit at the table with you, to enjoy being in your presence, to enjoy being with you.

40:50O Spirit of God, we need your help, and so we ask that you would give us the faith to believe what we have heard today and give us the grace to live in the good of it. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.