Jeremiah 31:2-30 “The Heart of the Father”

1:12Certainly, the most mature and godly people among us may be able to love that person well, may be able to go on forgiving them and treating them in the exact same way, but for most of us, when the same person lets us down over and over again, we struggle. To forgive, we struggle to love them. A fundamental problem of the human race is that if we think about God at all, we tend to think that He is mostly like us.

1:46He might be wiser or more powerful, to be sure, but we tend to conceive of Him as mostly like us. So we reason that if we struggle to love other people who let us down over and over again, then God probably struggles to love us because we let Him down over and over again and often aren't very remorseful about it. Let me ask you a question: How do you think God really feels about you? From many conversations over the years, I suspect that many of you might answer that question honestly.

2:34I feel like God is disappointed in me. I feel like He's tired of putting up with me. I don't deserve His blessings. Well, I'll tell you what, instead of projecting our feelings about ourselves onto God, why don't we let God Tell us how he feels about us this morning. In Jeremiah 31, we're going to see that in spite of our failures, God loves us, yearns for us, and longs to satisfy us. Let's pick up here in verse 2.

3:25Thus says the Lord: The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness. When Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. You may recall that Jeremiah 30 through 33, these four chapters in the book are known as the Book of Consolation. It's a book within a book because these chapters are filled with so much hope about the future of the exiles. They reveal the future and the hope that God promised to them back in chapter 29, that well-known chapter in those well-known verses that we covered a few weeks ago. And here in verses 2 and 3, the Lord says that those people who survived the sword, that is, those people who lived in Jerusalem and survived the siege of Jerusalem, when Nebuchadnezzar surrounded the city for months on end and then attacked it and burned it to the ground, those people who survived that awful apocalyptic time.

4:30Found grace in the wilderness. They found grace. They didn't earn it. Grace can't be earned, of course, but these people weren't good candidates for grace, even if it could be earned. They found grace. For hundreds of years, they disobeyed God. They refused to repent and to change their ways. They mocked God and his prophets. They turned to false gods. They turned to other nations for provision and protection. They knew the truth, or they should have known the truth, and yet they rejected it.

5:12And yet, these people found grace in the wilderness. Why? Because God loved them with an everlasting love. So he continued his faithfulness to them. God's faithfulness is not based on his people's faithfulness to him. And that is illustrated beautifully in the covenant that God makes with Abraham, the father of our faith. In Genesis chapter 12, God promised to make Abraham, who is old and childless, into a great nation through whom all of the nations of the earth would be blessed. And several years after making that promise to Abraham, Abraham was. Was still childless, so he cried out to God, essentially saying, How can I know that your promises are true?

6:08How can I know, God? And so God told him to take several animals, to cut them in half, and to lay them over against each other so that there was a pathway in the middle. That was pretty standard practice for covenants back in those days. When two people entered into a covenant, they would take animals, split them in half, make a pathway between the two halves, they would come to terms of agreement, and then they would both walk through the halves of the animals.

6:41And what they were saying by doing this is, if I fail to keep my end of the covenant, may I become like these slain animals. But I want you to see what God does in Genesis chapter 15 with Abraham. Take a look on the screen. When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. Do you notice anything here? Abraham himself never walks between the pieces.

7:25God alone passes between the pieces. And he is. Showing Abraham this covenant is unilateral. This covenant is not based on your performance, on how well you keep the terms of the covenant. It is based on my performance, and I will keep my promises to you. You see, God's faithfulness continued to Abraham in spite of his failures, because God loved him with an everlasting love, a love that could never be exhausted no matter what. And that love extended to Abraham's descendants, the great nation that was supposed to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth, in spite of their repeated failures, because it was based on his faithfulness to them, not on their faithfulness to him.

8:22So when they wandered, the Lord pursued them. The Lord, as he says here in verse 3, appeared to them from far away because he loved them with an everlasting love. And friends, God loves you and me with that same everlasting love. I want you to look on the screen at Romans chapter 5. For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die.

9:01But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Look at Ephesians 2. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

9:46When God the Father chose to save you before the foundation of the world was laid, he knew that you would sin against him. When Jesus died for you on the cross, every one of your sins was in the future. When the Holy Spirit drew you to Christ, the terms of your forgiveness and your reconciliation with God did not include your perfect performance from that day forward. How did God feel about his exiled people? I have loved you with an everlasting life. Love.

10:33How does God really feel about you? The exact same way. He has loved you with an everlasting love. In the person of Jesus, he came to seek us and find us, appearing to us from afar away in order to bring us back to himself. Friends, you did not earn God's love, and so you cannot lose God's love, no matter what. His love for you is not based on your performance. It's not based on your failures, your flaws, your sins, your missed quiet times, your lack of discipleship or evangelism. It is not based on any of those things. God's love for you is based on his own faithfulness, his everlasting faithfulness to his people. So, on days when you feel like you don't deserve the love of God, do not look at your flawed performance.

11:35Instead, look to the perfect performance of Christ on your behalf. But God doesn't just love us, friends, he yearns for us. Let's pick up now in verse 15. Thus says the Lord. A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more. Thus says the Lord, keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord. And they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country. I have heard Ephraim grieving. You have disciplined me, and I was disciplined, like an untrained calf. Bring me back that I may be restored, for you are the Lord my God. For after I had turned away, I relented, and after I was instructed, I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, and I was confounded, because I bore the disgrace of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore, my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord.

13:19In this section, God gives us a picture of Rachel, who is the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, weeping for her children. Her descendants that were carried off into exile. And then in verse 18, the attention shifts to Ephraim, who is one of Joseph's two sons. And Ephraim, in this time, kind of became a stand-in for the ten northern tribes of Israel that were carried away. So Ephraim is referring to those northern tribes, and here Ephraim is grieving.

13:54He refers to himself as an untrained calf, one that had to be disciplined by God. And after he had been instructed through that discipline, I want you to look at this again. Look at the second part in verse 19. He says, I struck my thigh, I was ashamed, and I was confounded because I bore the disgrace of my youth. God pictures his people literally beating themselves up for their sin, wallowing in their disgrace, drowning in shame.

14:36Can you relate? I think most of us can. You know, I'm sure there are people out there that are harder on others than they are on themselves. But I think for most of us, that's not our struggle. We are far harder on ourselves than we are on anybody else in our life. We think to ourselves, or we even say aloud, things like, I've messed up again. I've ruined everything. I always do this. Why do I keep doing the same thing? Why would God want anything to do with me? He's got to be so sick and tired of me.

15:21Can you relate to that? Beating yourself up over and over again, wallowing in shame and disgrace. Do you have those moments where you feel like God is just done with you? That he's got to be sick and tired of you coming to him because you've screwed up too many times? I think we all do, and so I want you to hear verse 20 again. Look at verse 20. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore, my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord.

16:12Let those words sink into your heart this morning. For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Does that sound like a father who is sick of his child? Every time he spoke out against his people, every time he brought trial or tragedy into their lives, every time he had to discipline them, his heart broke and yearned for his people. Look at Hebrews 12. If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

17:27Friends, the reason God disciplines us is because his heart yearns for us. He does not discipline us out of frustration or anger because his patience has completely run out. No, he disciplines us out of love because his heart yearns for you and me. It brings to mind the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. Many of us are familiar with that story. Father has two sons, and the younger son demands his share of the inheritance before the father. Has died, which is a humiliating and heart-crushing insult.

18:07So the father gives him his share, and the younger brother moves out. Just imagine what the father's neighbors were saying, what his employees were saying, what his in-laws were saying. We don't really have to wonder what his older son was saying. The embarrassment, the shame of having your own son tell you that he would rather have your money than a relationship with you. Could we blame the father if his heart grew cold and distant and bitter toward his son?

18:50I mean, if the injustice of the whole thing just made him angrier and angrier as time went on. Could we blame him if he thought about the day when his son might have to move back home and he could tell him, I told you so? But I want you to look what happens. Luke 15, verse 20. And the son arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

19:30When this father saw his son, it was not anger or smug satisfaction that welled up inside of him. It was compassion. When he saw his son, he did not stomp off to find the lowliest servant in the house and tell him, you go out there and tell that kid, he's not getting another dime from me. No. He himself ran and embraced him and kissed him. How does God really feel about you? He yearns for you. Just like this father yearned for his son to come home and to re-establish that relationship with him.

20:29I want you to look at what Dane Ortland wrote. He said, When we sin, we are encouraged to bring our mess to Jesus because he will know just how to receive us. He doesn't handle us roughly. He doesn't scowl and scold. He doesn't lash out the way many of our parents did. And all this restraint on his part is not because he has a deluded view of our sinfulness. Knows our sinfulness far more deeply than we do.

21:04Indeed, we are aware of just the tip of the iceberg of our depravity, even in our most searching moments of self-knowledge. His restraint simply flows from this tender heart for his people. So, friends, if you have been beating yourself up, If you've been wallowing in guilt and shame, if you've been feeling the disgrace that comes from past decisions that you have made, then I want you to know that God's heart yearns for you. He yearns for you.

21:49If you come to him through Jesus, he will not handle you roughly. He will not scold you or scowl at you. In compassion, he will run to meet you. He will embrace you and kiss you, not because you deserve it, but because he has loved you with an everlasting love and sent his son Jesus to seek you and find you and die for you while you were yet a sinner. So come to him. Don't wait any longer thinking that you have to fix yourself, that you've got to get to a certain place before you can come to God.

22:30Come to God today, and he will receive you. He promises that. And friends, if you'd like a copy of that book, it's called Gentle and Lowly. We have a free copy for as many people as want one today. So just come see me by the doors after service. So we've seen that God loves us, he yearns for us. Let's back up now to verse 11, where we see that he longs to satisfy us. Verse 11: For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd. Their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow. I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord. Skip all the way down to verse 23.

23:59Thus Says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Once more they shall use these words in the land of Judah and in its cities when I restore their fortunes. The Lord bless you, O habitation of righteousness, O holy hill, and Judah and all its cities shall dwell there together, and the farmers and those who wander with their flocks. For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish. Through Jeremiah, God tells the people that when he brings them back from exile, their mourning is going to be turned into joy.

24:40He's going to comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow. The weary and languishing souls of the people are going to be satisfied and delighted and replenished with the goodness of God. Church, even if we come to believe that God does and that he does yearn for us, it is hard for many of us to believe that he longs to satisfy us. And maybe that's because you know that you don't deserve God's blessings. Or maybe it's because he hasn't blessed you in the way that you hoped.

25:25First, I want to speak to those who struggle to believe that God longs to satisfy you because You know, you don't deserve God's blessings. Well, you're right about that. We don't deserve anything good from God. We have all sinned against Him on purpose and on accident, in ways that we know about and in ways that we don't. But thankfully, God does not treat us as our sins deserve. This past week in our staff chapel, Pastor Joshua was leading us through Psalm 103, and in Psalm 103 we find this: He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

26:13Think about that. He does not deal with us according to our sins. And what that means is, before deciding whether he's going to bless us, whether he's going to satisfy us with good things, God does not get out his heavenly ledger and add up the good things that you've done and the bad things that you've done and determine whether or not he's going to bless you based on that ledger. Based on adding up our behavior to see whether we've earned a blessing.

26:46No, friends, loving parents don't deal with children that way. Now, I'm not saying that loving parents reward disobedience or bad behavior, but what I am saying is that loving parents long to bless their children. Even when their behavior does not warrant a blessing, how much more our Heavenly Father? The people of Judah had not earned God's blessing, and neither have we. But God longs to bless us anyway because He is a good Father who longs to give good gifts to His children and to satisfy our weary and languishing souls. Praise God that He does not deal with us according to our sins.

27:33God longs to satisfy us, even though we don't deserve it. So, some of us struggle to believe that God longs to satisfy us because we know that we don't deserve His blessings, but I think there are other people in here today who struggle to believe that God longs to bless you because He has not given you what you've hoped for and asked for. Maybe for years you've prayed for a husband or a wife and you're still not married.

28:08Maybe for years you've prayed for a child and you still don't have one. Maybe you've prayed for a job or a promotion or a raise and you haven't got one. Maybe you've had lingering health issues. And you are still sick. Whatever the case may be, you have begged God to satisfy this desire of yours, this hope, this longing, and he hasn't answered your prayers, and so you struggle to believe that God longs to satisfy you. And I'm willing to bet that people have said all kinds of unbiblical and unhelpful stuff to you along the way.

28:54Things like, well, you must not be praying with enough faith. Or, you know, God says He won't answer our prayers if we cherish sin in our hearts. Or even, Paul wrote that, for those who love God, all things work together for good. Well, many people are married, and they never once prayed for a spouse. Many people have children, and they do cherish sin in their hearts. On the other hand, many godly people are overlooked at work.

29:42Many godly people are chronically ill, and yet they pray in faith. They don't cherish sin in their hearts, they love the Lord. So, if you were to tell me, Pastor Allen, I just struggle to believe that God longs to satisfy me because he hasn't done it. I understand that. But I want to encourage you to think about the promise that is being made to you in this chapter today. In John chapter 4, Jesus is worn out from traveling and he sits down beside a well. And he gets into a conversation with a Samaritan woman who came to draw water in the heat of the day. This woman has had five husbands. She's currently living with a man who's not any of those guys.

30:41And Jesus tells her that she needs living water. And she's like, yeah, that sounds great. Then I wouldn't have to come here in the middle of the day to draw water and listen to everybody gossip about me. But look what Jesus said. Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

31:21You see, Jesus is offering to satisfy more than her physical thirst for a few minutes. He is offering to satisfy her soul for all of eternity. And I think that is the encouragement that comes out of this passage today. We are asking God for good things, for marriage, for children, for success at work, for relief from illness, for great things. But friends, look at what God is promising you here in verse 25 of Jeremiah 31: for I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.

32:15Friends, as long as our souls are weary and languishing, no good thing on this earth will ever truly satisfy us. Not marriage, not children, not success at work, not perfect health. To paraphrase Augustine, our hearts will be restless until they rest in God. That is why Jesus focuses on this woman's soul. Because until our souls are satisfied in God, they will not be satisfied with anything else. How does God really? Feel about you. He loves you, he yearns for you, and yes, he longs to satisfy you, even though day after day, month after month, maybe year after year, your prayers go unanswered because he promises that he will satisfy you in the end.

33:24That a day is coming when every longing of your soul will be completely and fully satisfied forever. Where there will be no more hoping and no more longing and no more praying because our faith has become sight. That's all I want to encourage you this morning to fix your eyes on that promise: I will satisfy the weary soul and every languishing soul I will replenish. Friends, the problem that we haven't talked about in this passage comes out in verses 29 and 30.

34:05It's a little obscure. In those days they shall no longer say, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But everyone shall die for his own sin. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. You see, during the exile, kids were carried off to Babylon. And over many generations, many, many more kids were born there. But you see, the exile wasn't a result of their sin. It was a result of their parents' sin.

34:46Hence the proverb: the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. The kids are paying for the sins of the parents. But God says that a day is coming when that's not going to be the case any longer. Everyone shall die for his own iniquity. That sounds like good news. You're not going to have to pay for somebody else's sins until you realize that we have all committed iniquity. We all deserve to die for our sin.

35:19But the good news of the gospel is that God sent his only begotten son, Jesus, to live a perfect life that you were supposed to live, to die in your place for your sin, and to rise victorious over sin and death on the third day in the same body that died on the cross and was buried. God did that for you and me. He gave up his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

35:50And I want you to look at Romans chapter 8. How does God really feel about you? He who did not Spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things? In other words, if God was willing to give up his only son for you, why would we ever question how he really feels about us? There is no greater demonstration of love than a father giving up his only son or someone laying down his own life in your place.

36:33So coming in here this morning, you may have thought to yourself, how does God really feel about me? And it might be the case that a year from now, a month from now, even tomorrow, you're asking that same question, how does God really feel about me? And if that happens, I hope you will return to Jeremiah 30 and Jeremiah 31 and the rest of God's word and be reminded that in spite of your failures, God loves you, he yearns for you, and he longs to satisfy you. Thanks be to God. Let's pray.

37:31Father, we have all wondered at times what you think of us. We've often concluded that you must think of us like we think about the people in our lives who let us down over and over and over again. That you must think we are impossible to love, that you're tired of us. But God, you've shown us in your word that that is not the case. You love us and yearn for us and long to satisfy us. So I pray for every Christian here today who has beaten themselves up for years, who has wallowed in shame and disgrace, and wonders all the time what you really think about them.

38:34I pray that you encourage them this morning. Help them to believe the truth and to live in light of it. God, for those who are not yet Christians, I pray that this morning they would see you as you are, as Pastor Micah prayed earlier, not just as true and real, but as beautiful and good. As loving and yearning and desirous to satisfy the deepest longings of our souls, thank you for ministering to us, God. I pray that through the Spirit and through the church, your ministry would continue this week in life groups and in conversations and in our own prayer time.

39:32In Jesus' 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.