Jeremiah 26:1-28:17 “Obedience is Worth the Price”

1:09I looked it up the other day, and in the year of our Lord 2024, if I were to get the crazy notion to jump in the car, drive to Wendy's, and purchase this exact same meal, it would cost me $11.16, and I would only get $8. Nuggies, not ten. The cost of living certainly has gone up, hasn't it? What, with the whole state of California moving here and all? The cost of living has gone up in the last few years everywhere. Everyone is paying higher prices for everything, but some people pay a higher price than others.

1:59Today we are in Jeremiah 26 through 28, and we are going to consider not the cost of living, but the cost of obedience to God. Jesus was very clear that following him would be costly for everybody. Everyone would pay a high price, and some people would pay a higher price than others. But Jesus said that it's all worth it in the end. And so, friends, today we're going to learn that obedience to God is costly, but the eternal rewards are worth the price.

2:40Here at the beginning of chapter 26, it is roughly 609 BC at the front end of evil King Jehoiakim's reign over Judah. And God speaks to Jeremiah and commands him to stand in the temple and preach to the people. And if you look at the end of verse 2, God says to him, Do not hold back a word. Now, it's not hard to understand why God said that. Every believer knows the temptation to hold back part of God's word, those parts that are hard, those parts that are offensive, those parts that we know our classmates and teammates and co-workers will not like to hear. We all know that temptation, and Jeremiah faced that same temptation. So, God told him to go stand in the temple and preach his word and don't leave out anything.

3:36And that's what he does. He tells the people that they must repent, or God will destroy the city of Jerusalem and the temple in it. Now, understand, Jeremiah could have said almost anything. He could have said almost anything, and the people probably would have just shrugged it off. Prophets are going to prophesy. You need to repent, yada, yada, yada. But that's not what happens. And that's because Jeremiah said the one thing that cannot be said: that Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed. So the priests and the prophets round up the officials of Judah and put Jeremiah on trial. He responds by saying his life is in their hands. But if they kill him, they will be shedding innocent blood because God did command him to speak. Ultimately, as we saw, the people waffle and they end up deciding not to put Jeremiah to death.

4:43After all, the elders reason, Micah the prophet said the same words a hundred years earlier, and the people did not put him to death, so they let Jeremiah walk. But that's not what happened with another faithful prophet named Uriah that we meet at the end of the chapter. Look again at verse 20: He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah. He said the same stuff, but for whatever reason, King Jehoiakim is determined to put him to death. Uriah hears of this plot and he flees to Egypt, but Jehoiakim sends men to chase him down, bring him back, and then the king himself strikes down this prophet with the sword.

5:39Two faithful prophets, one faithful message, two very different outcomes. Why? Why did God allow faithful Uriah to be struck down with the sword? When he allowed faithful Jeremiah to live, it reminds me of the end of the Gospel of John when Jesus is talking to Peter and they're walking by the sea, and he tells Peter that one day Peter is going to be martyred for his testimony to Jesus. And Peter turns around and he motions to John and he says, Lord, what about this man?

6:27I want you to look at John chapter 21 on the screen. Jesus said to him, If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. As far as we know, all of the apostles except John were martyred for their faith. Now, John's obedience was costly. You may know that he spent most of the last years of his life exiled on an island called Patmos. His obedience was very costly.

7:02Think about Christians today. Many of us live in places where we can speak the truth openly, even hard truths that people don't want to hear, and yet we are free, relatively wealthy, materially blessed. But most other Christians around the world do not have that situation. Speaking the truth has cost them. Significantly, where they live. They have lost their freedom. They've lost possessions and money. They've lost spouses and children. In some cases, they have even lost their lives.

7:47Brothers and sisters, what do we make of this? What do we make of situations like Uriah and Jeremiah, Peter and John? Most Christians in the world today, and our experience as Christians living in America. Here's what we must understand: obeying God is always costly. Obeying God is always costly. It might cost Uriah more than Jeremiah. It might cost Peter more than John. It might cost you more than me, or me more than you, but obedience to God is always costly.

8:32Every believer pays a price for following Jesus. Look on the screen at Matthew chapter 5, what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets. Who are before you? Look at those words. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

9:15You see, friends, it's a matter of when, not a matter of if, that we will pay a price for following Jesus. Throughout his ministry, Jesus was clear that anyone who follows him will pay a price. So we all need to sit down and count the cost. And that also means that if we call ourselves Christians and we are not paying any price for following Jesus, we need to ask why that is. Why is it that we're not paying any price for following him?

9:55Like Jeremiah and John, we may pay a lower price than other Christians that we know or other Christians around the world, but Jesus taught over and over that following him would cost us something. So if our faith isn't costing us anything, we need to ask why. It might be that we are holding back from speaking the whole truth to those in our lives. Remember what God said to Jeremiah: do not hold back a word. Paul is a great example of this. I want you to look at what he said to the Ephesian elders the last time that he was with them.

10:37Paul said, Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. The whole counsel of God. All of it. Not just the easy parts, not just the palatable parts, all of it, the hard parts and the offensive parts. So, church, let's remember, obeying God is always costly. It may not cost you as much as somebody else, but it will always cost you.

11:20And in chapter 27, we'll see that obedience to God sometimes looks crazy, too. Pick up in chapter 27, verse 1 with me. In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord. Thus the Lord said to me, Make yourself straps and yoke bars and put them on your neck. Send word to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the sons of Ammon, the king of Tyre. And the king of Sidon by the hand of the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah, king of Judah. Give them this charge for their masters. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: This is what you shall say to your masters: It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me. Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him. All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave. But if any nation or kingdom will not serve this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, declares the Lord, until I have consumed it by his hand. So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your fortune-tellers, or your sorcerers who are saying to you, You shall not serve the king of Babylon. For it is a lie that they are prophesying to you, with the result that you will be removed far from your land, and I will drive you out, and you will perish. But any nation that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of the Lord, Of Babylon and serve him, I will leave on its own land to work it and dwell there, declares the Lord.

13:39Being a prophet is just a hard job. This chapter fast-forwards us about 16 years to 593 BC, which is during the beginning of the reign of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah. And God speaks to Jeremiah and commands him to make straps and yoke bars and to put them on his neck and to wear them around. And friends, it would be hard enough if Jeremiah simply had to walk around the city like that, his life yet another object lesson for everybody to see. But it was much harder than that. A group of envoys from these surrounding nations of Edom and Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon have come to Jerusalem to meet with King Zedekiah to discuss their options with Babylon surrounding them at this time. They are considering forming an alliance to rebel against him, reasoning that the only chance that they have is by working together under the philosophy, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

14:47So I want you to picture the scene. These important diplomats have gathered in Zedekiah's war room to discuss this very tense situation. All of these people have been. Enemies their entire life. But they need each other, so they've met together. And out of nowhere, Jeremiah the prophet bursts into the room wearing a homemade yoke. The guards are apologizing profusely to King Zedekiah as Jeremiah begins his speech to these foreign dignitaries. Every single word that he says is offensive. He tells them to go home and tell their kings that God, the only real God, made all of heaven and earth and he gives it to whomever he wants. He says that he is going to give their lands into Nebuchadnezzar's hands. They should not listen to their own prophets, diviners, dreamers, fortune tellers, sorcerers, or anyone else giving spiritual advice in an old shopping center.

16:03Instead, they should listen to Jeremiah, because he is the prophet of the Lord, and they need to bring their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon. If they do that, if they submit to him, it will be well. If they don't, they will be utterly consumed by the sword. So picture Zedekiah's face in this moment. Here he is trying to form this tenuous alliance with these nations. Nations that have been at odds with Israel forever. And this crazy prophet comes in, offending all of his guests and telling them they need to surrender.

16:41In verses 12 through 22, Jeremiah preaches this same message directly to King Zedekiah and then to all the people of Judah. And we've already seen that obedience to God is costly, but now we're reminded that obedience to God often seems crazy. Put yourself in Zedekiah's sandals for a minute. You're the king of Judah. You're in charge of a whole nation, a nation that you know God chose and called and blessed. You are surrounded by false prophets constantly telling you that everything is going to be fine, that God is never going to allow Jerusalem or his temple to be touched. You're surrounded by soldiers who are willing to fight and die to defend their land and their families from foreign invaders. You are surrounded by all of these dignitaries from these foreign countries that you are trying to make an alliance with and fight back against this king.

17:44And you're supposed to listen to this guy wearing a homemade yoke? Nobody would stand for it. The prophets would say, you have no faith in God and his promises. The soldiers would say, you're a coward who's afraid. To fight. The foreign kings would say, you're a weak leader. And it's entirely likely that you'd be killed in your sleep because that sort of thing happened all the time back in those days. The whole thing seems crazy. And that's why it's so important to remember that God's thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. What seems like wisdom to us is foolishness to God, and what seems like foolishness to us is wisdom in God's eyes. Obedience to God often seems crazy to other people.

18:41After Jesus began his ministry, great crowds began assembling to hear him preach because they had heard about all of these miracles that he was performing. He's healing diseases and curing people of the incurable. He's driving out demons. But look at what Mark records. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, he is out of his mind. His own family thought he was crazy. When Paul was imprisoned under Festus, he had the opportunity to preach the gospel to Festus and to a man named King Agrippa. And just as he gets to the part about Jesus' death, Death and burial and resurrection from the dead. Look at what Festus does. He interrupts him and it says, And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, you are out of your mind. Your great learning is driving you out of your mind.

19:49The people who heard Paul preaching about Christ's death and resurrection thought that he was crazy. After I became a Christian, that was my experience. Members of my family said I was becoming too radical. My high school friends quit answering my calls. I was far from perfect, but I wasn't out of my mind. I was just doing my best to read the Bible and to obey what it said. But to all of these people in my life, it seemed like I had gone crazy because my priorities and values had shifted. I was no longer living for the things of the world. I no longer loved the things of the world. I was living for God because I loved Him and I wanted to obey Him.

20:42And friends, I think that's really the biggest sticking point for most of us here in America. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's possible that we could lose our lives. It's possible that we could lose our freedom or our families, our possessions, our money. That is all possible. But it is far more likely that we will simply be thought of as crazy people. People think believing in God is nuts. People think believing that Jesus was his Son who lived and died and rose again is crazy. People think prayer is crazy. They think giving money to support gospel ministry is crazy.

21:30They think giving up our Sundays to do this is crazy. They think the whole thing is crazy. And nobody in history has ever wanted to be thought of as crazy. But in a culture like ours, where appearance is absolutely everything, where you stand a good chance of being canceled for believing in God and obeying the Bible, it is tough to take a stand. So I want you to remember that obeying God is always costly. And part of that cost is having people you respect think that you are crazy.

22:13It's one reason that membership in a healthy local church is so important. Living in committed relationships with other Christians reminds us that we are not crazy, that the Christian life is both beautiful and good. That the Christian faith is not only rational, it is a coherent worldview that makes the best sense of out of all the historic and scientific data at our disposal. We need those reminders. We need them on Sundays and we need them all week long.

22:53So, friends, obedience is always costly, and part of that cost is having people think you're crazy. So, let's turn now to chapter 28, where we see that costly obedience is rewarded in the end. Chapter 28, verse 1. In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah, the son of Azer, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two years, I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from this place and carried to Babylon. I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the Lord. For I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

24:02So, this is that same year, 593 BC, and Hananiah goes to the temple, the very place where Jeremiah preached his sermon, and he begins his message with the prophetic formula, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, claiming to speak divine words on God's behalf. But Hananiah proceeds to contradict every single thing that Jeremiah said. He says the exile isn't going to last 70 years. It's only going to be two more years. He preaches a positive message.

24:40So look what happens next, verse 5. Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Hananiah the prophet in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord. And the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen. May the Lord do so. May the Lord make the words that you have prophesied come true and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the Lord and all of the exiles. Yet hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet. Then the prophet Hananiah took the yoke bars from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke them. And Hananiah spoke in the presence of the people, saying, Thus says the Lord, even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all the nations within two years. But Jeremiah the prophet went his way.

25:53After listening to Hananiah contradict everything that he had preached, his entire ministry, Jeremiah says, Amen. May the Lord do so. I hope you're right, Hananiah. That would be great. Because, friends, remember, Jeremiah loves God, and he loves God's people. That's why he's so often in tears, weeping for them. Because they won't listen, they won't obey, and judgment and discipline are coming as a result, and he does not want that. But because Jeremiah has been prophesying destruction for decades, people had probably started to think of him as something of a hater, or worse yet, a traitor.

26:40Somebody who actually wanted to watch Jerusalem burn. But that's not true at all. Jeremiah wants good for his people. So when Hananiah speaks that prophecy, he says, that would be awesome, but we're just going to have to wait and see. Because Jeremiah knows God's word. And if you look at verse 9, he's referring to what Moses said: As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.

27:17So he says, We'll have to wait and see. Hananiah responds in dramatic fashion. He takes those yoke bars from Jeremiah's neck and he breaks them, repeating his prophecy that it would only be two years until the yoke of Babylon was broken. And Jeremiah shows incredible restraint. He doesn't say anything, he doesn't do anything, he just turns around and walks off, no doubt to the jeers and applause of all of the people, who had probably been waiting a very long time for somebody to put this prophet of doom and gloom in his place.

27:54That reminds us of the cost of obedience. Hananiah isn't an outsider, he is an insider. He's a fellow Benjaminite from the same tribe as Jeremiah. He's a fellow prophet just like Jeremiah. And yet, Hananiah is mocking and contradicting him. Friends, I think for many Christians, obedience is the costliest among insiders, not outsiders. It's the hardest among professing believers, not unbelievers. Jesus himself said that a prophet is accepted everywhere except in his hometown and in his own house.

28:39In the New Testament, the apostles and the Christians faced much more trouble from professing believers in the church than they ever did from outsiders. That's certainly been my experience. My guess is it's been yours too. That's hard and discouraging, but it's part of the price of obedience. Let's finish in verse 12. Sometime after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke bars from off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. Go tell Hananiah, thus says the Lord, you have broken wooden bars, but you have made in their place bars of iron. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put upon the neck of all these nations an iron yoke to serve Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and they shall serve him, for I have given to him even the beasts of the field. And Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Hananiah, Listen, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. Therefore, thus says the Lord, Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have uttered rebellion against the Lord. In that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died.

30:08I want you to notice again: Jeremiah does not speak a word until God first speaks to him. And that reminds us of what we talked about a few weeks ago. Before we speak, we must first listen to God's word. And God's word contradicted everything that Hananiah had said. Thanks to his false prophecy, the people's hearts were just further hardened, and the wooden yoke was going to be replaced with an iron yoke. Because he led God's people astray, Hananiah would die that same year. And just two months later, according to the word of the Lord through Jeremiah, Hananiah was dead.

30:55Brothers and sisters, this chapter shows us that while obedience is costly, it is always worth it in the end. We will be mocked and thought of as crazy for obeying God. We can only wonder what people said about Jeremiah as he walked off in silence after Hananiah broke his yoke. We can only wonder what they said about him in the time in between that happened and Hananiah's death. They probably thought he was crazy. But if that were the case, Jeremiah. Was in good company. And so were you and I. Look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 11.

31:39For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. Let that sink in for a minute. Wisdom is justified by her deeds. In other words, don't be too quick to judge. John didn't have a demon. Jesus said that he was the greatest prophet in history, that nobody in the kingdom of God was greater than him.

32:28Jesus wasn't a glutton and a drunkard. He was a friend of tax collectors and sinners, but that's because he came to seek and to save the lost by his life, death, and resurrection. So, friends, just understand that obeying God will seem like foolishness to many people in your life, including sometimes other professing Christians. But wisdom is justified by her deeds. In time, it will be seen whether what we did in obedience to God was. Crazy or faithful.

33:03And since we're living to please God rather than man, we can patiently wait for his verdict rather than anybody else's. Friends, Jeremiah and Uriah. John and Peter and many believers throughout history are wonderful examples of obedience. In spite of the cost, they obeyed God. But not one of them obeyed God perfectly. Jeremiah did what God commanded, but you may remember back in the fall, he also accused God of deceiving him. Uriah did what God commanded. And while his flight to Egypt is not explicitly condemned in the scripture, it's not exactly presented as a faith-based decision either.

34:00John and Peter ran away when Jesus was arrested, and Peter denied knowing him three times. My point is that even the most faithful believers in history did not obey God perfectly. And neither do we. But God's righteousness demands perfection in obedience. Take a look at James chapter 2. For whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, Has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, do not murder. If you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

34:44You see, we can obey 99% of all that God has commanded in his word. But if we don't obey 100% of his word 100% of the time, we are lawbreakers because there's just two options. You are either a lawkeeper or a law breaker. That's it. So, according to God's perfect standard of obedience, every one of us is guilty. We are born under the curse of the law. But thanks be to God, He sent His Son Jesus to save us from the curse. Look at Galatians chapter 3.

35:29Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, as it is written: Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Friends, do you hear that good news? We are guilty of breaking the whole law because we have not perfectly obeyed. We are under a curse. But God sent his only begotten Son to become a curse for us.

36:10By dying on the cross, he took the punishment that we deserved, enduring the wrath of God in our place. He was buried and rose from the dead, defeating sin and death in your place and mine. And now all who trust in him, all who put their hope and their faith in Jesus, are justified. We are counted righteous in Christ. Through faith, our disobedience is counted against him. And through faith, his righteousness and obedience are credited to us.

36:47On the basis of God's gracious work on our behalf, we are called to strive for perfection in our obedience. But, brothers and sisters, we strive for perfect obedience not because it is attainable or because we cannot have God's favor until we attain it, but rather because we are already loved, already accepted, and already looked at as perfectly righteous through faith in Jesus Christ. That frees us up to strive for perfection, knowing that we don't have to attain perfection in order to have God's love and favor.

37:30Amazingly, God promises to reward us for our obedience, which is what we owe him anyway. And so I just want to end with these words from Jesus, this wonderful promise. Listen first to the law, how impossible this is, but love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Listen to this, and your reward will be great. And you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

38:05O church, obedience to God is costly, but the eternal rewards are worth the price. Let's pray. Father, even as I preach this morning, I am aware that some in the room today have paid a very high cost to follow Jesus. We have all paid a price. But there are some here today I know that have been rejected by their families. They have lost job opportunities, promotional opportunities. Opportunities. They have been left off of teams. They have been left out by friends.

39:11Following you has really cost them something. And so I pray that this morning you would come and you would encourage them with the reminder that it is all worth it in the end. That everything that they have given up, that they might give up, that they will give up one day, it is all worth it in the end because you promised to reward us. God, I pray that you would help us to be men and women, boys and girls who are willing to follow Jesus no matter what the cost is.

39:54Because we didn't come to him for a better life here on this earth. We came for the abundant eternal life that you promised us. Help us, God. In Christ's name we pray. 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.