Jeremiah 34:1-35:19 Living For What You Lovev

1:13I want to begin our time with a question. What do you love? What do you love? Now, I know on the surface it's seemingly simple, but it's actually a hard question. I think it's a hard question because we. Use the word so flippantly in our world, in our culture. We love so many things, right? Even as I ask the question, maybe you're thinking about the food or the restaurant that you love. Your mouth is beginning to water. Maybe your thoughts are already going to lunchtime, but don't go there yet, right? Come back. We have some work to do before we get there. Maybe you're thinking about the thing that you own that you love. Maybe that patio setting that is just perfect for those four days a year in Texas that you get to enjoy.

2:13Maybe you finally saved up to buy the car that you've always wanted. Maybe it's a particular article of clothing or an outfit. I don't know. Maybe that's what comes to mind. Or maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's a friend or a family member. Maybe it is your spouse. As Proverbs says, maybe it is a brother or sister in Christ that's closer than a sibling. We love so many things, but there's a different sense, right? There's a deeper sense in which I mean that question.

2:56And so maybe a better question to ask is. What do you live for? Like functionally, practically, what do you live for? Now, maybe this gets to the heart of the issue. You see, we're programmed to think that doing is the greatest virtue, that doing is greater than being. We live as if we are what we do, that our like our worth and our value comes from that which we can see, comes from the physical rather than the spiritual. We're programmed to think that we are what we do, that doing is greater than being.

3:42And so, this morning I want to take a deeper look and think more carefully about these topics, the topic of love and the topic of life, because the living of our lives points to that which we truly love. In his 2016 book, You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith sets forth this idea, and he says that the heart is at the center of who we are. It's at the center of our desires, our wants, and the source from which we live our lives.

4:18Well, he didn't come up with that. Smith didn't come up with that. That's a biblical idea. Proverbs 4, for example, says that above all else, guard your heart. Why? Why guard your heart? For everything you do flows from it. So Smith says, the heart is at the center. Listen to this. To be human is to be a lover and to love something ultimate. In other words, love is our most fundamental orientation to the world. That is, love is less a conscious choice and more like a baseline inclination, a default orientation that generates the choices we make.

5:07But there's a problem. There's a problem. God has created, though God has created us for Himself, and our hearts are designed to find their end in Him, many, many, many spend their days restlessly craving rival gods, frenetically pursuing rival kingdoms. I don't know about you, but reading that struck my heart. As we just sang, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Well, friends, I think in part, this is one of the aims of Jeremiah's writing.

6:01As we have been walking through forever, it seems, I think Jeremiah, the Lord through Jeremiah, is helping us to see that God, our Father, is after our loves, He's after our hearts. And what we love, where our hearts are, is most evident in how we live, what we are living for. So, through God's Word and through the prophet Jeremiah, God has written to us to reveal Himself to us that we might love Him, that we might live for Him, as John says, that we might have life in His name.

6:44Most importantly, in the midst of God's discipline through judgment, God is seeking to remind Judah, and He's seeking to remind us. Don't miss this of His everlasting love and faithfulness. It all begins with God's love. Remember Jeremiah 31? God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. And as we've seen, and you know that this is true based on your own life, it's not enough just to know these truths. It's not enough to know this reality of God and His love, but what one does with what they know is actually the proving ground to what one truly believes and what one truly loves.

7:43It's not enough just to know, but what we do is actually the proving ground, as Pastor David prayed. God, let us not be hearers only, but let us be doers. You see that connection? So here's the spoiler. Just a warning. I want us to see behind the layers of Jeremiah, his writing, and I want us to first and foremost see and understand that all of this is about loving relationship. It's all about loving relationship. And then it's about a call to respond, to respond to God's everlasting love and faithfulness by living a life that honors him, that brings him glory. And so there are two things that are true. What we love, right, the heart influences how we live. What we love influences how we live. But it's also true that how we live forms our loves. Works both ways.

9:00What we love influences how we live, and how we live forms our love. And so, this morning, as a detective, I'm asking you to follow the evidence in your life to discern that which you truly love, because you will live for what you love. As a physician, I'm asking you to follow the symptomatic evidence to discern the true desire of your heart for where your heart is. That's what you'll treasure, and that's what you'll live for.

9:39I think this is the task before us in Jeremiah 34 and 35. And so, I want to show you why that's true. It's important to note that these chapters, 34 and 35, we only read a section of 35, but these chapters are arranged thematically. This has happened previously in Jeremiah's writing. They're arranged thematically and not chronologically. And so, in chapter 35, God, through Jeremiah, offers the Rechabites as an example of faithful love. And this faithful love is seen through their obedience. While chapter 35, previously, is a negative example, Judah's lack of loving faithfulness as seen through their disobedience, their unwillingness to follow God with their lives. Lives. Ultimately, what I want us to learn, what I think we learn from these chapters, is because of God's everlasting love and faithfulness, we have been created to live in loving obedience to Him.

10:48Because of God's everlasting love and faithfulness, we have been created to live in loving obedience to Him. And so we begin with chapter 5, chapter 35 with the Rechobites. Given the fact that not much is known about this group of people, we only really see them here and in 2 Kings. They're linked to their founder, Jonadab. His name comes up in chapter 35 as well. It seems as though the Lord wants them to serve as an example to Judah and to us of what it looks like to honor one's leader, one's founder, and to live according to his ways. That's what we would call obedience. Living and according to one's ways out of love. And so chapter 35 begins, and here's how the story goes.

11:41Jeremiah is sent to meet and greet the Rechabites, to invite them into the temple complex, and to wine and dine them. It's really in the Bible. I didn't make it up to wine and dine them. Verse 5 tells us that he set before them pitchers of wine. Wine and cups, and he says, Drink, drink. And God told him to do it. Well, verse 6, they protest, not because it's illegal or wrong to drink alcohol, but they say, verse 6, we will drink no wine. For Jonadab the son of Rechob, our father, commanded us, you shall not drink wine, neither you nor your sons. Get this, forever, forever.

12:34Verse 8 gives us more insight into the why behind this. Look at verse 8, chapter 35. We, the Rechobites say, have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechob, our father, in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and to not build houses to dwell in. So, in other words, they are to build tents and camp out outside the city of Jerusalem because of the potential threat of the Babylonians or Chaldeans.

13:08They're doing all of this because their father, their founder, has asked them to do so. That is, they heard and they listened to the voice of their founder. I think we all understand there's a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing Brings to mind that old phrase, something going in one ear and out the other ear, right? You can hear something, it can actually go through, but it comes out on the other side. But listening, on the other hand, means that it comes in and it goes down, right? Or up, brain and heart. It makes sense to internalize it. So the Rechabites appear to have heard and listened. They obeyed, trusting that their founder knew what was best for them. And what was he calling them to do?

14:06Well, among other things, he was calling them to live their lives distinct from the rest of the people around them. And upon seeing this, Jeremiah turns to Judah with this indictment from God. Now, I know that sounds weighty and scary, but I want you to get a sense of the tone in which Jeremiah then goes to Judah. It's what we read just a little bit ago. Beginning in verse 13, this very pointed and yet compassionate question, Jeremiah and the Lord to Judah. Will you not receive my instruction and listen to my words?

14:57The command that Jonadab the son of Rebecca. Jacob gave to his sons to drink no wine has been kept. And they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their father's command. I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me. You have not inclined your ear to listen to me. Pop quiz. How does Jeremiah know that they haven't listened? Maybe they've heard, but they haven't listened, taken it to heart. Well, because they haven't done what the Lord has said. It's pretty simple, right?

15:49And brothers and sisters, I want you to taste and see the great compassion of our God through the prophet Jeremiah. Though he will not let the guilty go unpunished, he is gentle and he is kind. And he desires that all would come to know him and find life in his name. But we also have to acknowledge the warning here that it may not be so among us, that we might not just hear what God is telling us, but that we would listen, that we would take it to heart. Because Judah would experience physical disaster, they would experience. God's discipline, which is the physical result of their break in covenant relationship.

16:38Now, we've talked much about covenant. Not going to go into that today. I want to encourage you to go back and listen to chapter 31. Pastor Alan preached two sermons, lots of details there on covenant, but the big idea here is that covenant has everything to do with relationship, very little to do with contract or legal requirement. Covenant has everything to do with relationship. So Judah would experience physical disaster, but the Rechabites, on the other hand, they would experience God's blessing even though they were not part of God's covenant people.

17:19Because you see, the way that one submits to their earthly leaders is great evidence to the way that one responds to the Lord. When we turn back to chapter 34, we're going to look at Judah now, and it seems that there's a particular situation that might have precipitated all of this, highlighting Judah's unfaithfulness. We see this in their disobedience. So, verse 6 in chapter 34, the first thing to notice is who the Lord directs Jeremiah to.

17:57Jeremiah first goes to Zedekiah. Zedekiah is the king, and he is the king. This is linked to 32 and 33, chapters 32 and 33. He's king during the Babylonian siege, and as go the leaders, so go the people. This is why James in the New Testament says that not many should become teachers and leaders of others, because there's a special burden of responsibility that leaders assume when leading others. So, first, God goes through Jeremiah to Zedekiah the king, and as a result of his poor leadership and the people's actions, judgment again is pronounced on Judah because they failed to honor their covenant commitment with God.

18:45Specifically, we learn in verses 7 through 16 that they promised to free their slaves, which they initially appeared to have done, but then they turn right back around and undo it all and take their slaves back. Judah's actions in this way point to the heart of the matter. Judah's unfaithfulness is seen in their disobedience, and it's evidence of what is in their hearts, because as we have seen, you live for what you love. Well, the only right response for not keeping one's word in relationship is righteous anger. And so God's anger is kindled due to this injustice. And in verses 13 to 22, God communicates how he would lovingly discipline them for their disobedience. And so, with this understanding of 34 and 35, I know it's not every verse, it's not everything that's there, but with this understanding, I want to direct your attention to chapter 35, verse 16, because I think really both chapters really hinge on this verse.

20:15The sons of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, have kept the command that their father gave them, but this people, Judah, have not obeyed me. I think here it is, both chapters side by side. This is the point of the matter. This is where God's heart begins to speak. The Rechabites, out of love for their earthly founder, they lived a life of obedience, seeking to conform their will and their ways to honor him and bring him glory.

20:55But Judah, whose heavenly father had shown his everlasting love, And faithfulness, time and time and time again. They lived a life of disobedience, insisting upon their own will and ways, living life to bring glory to themselves. Because though God had created them for Himself and their hearts were designed to find their end in Him, they were spending their days restlessly craving rival gods, pursuing rival kingdoms. Well, if there's any doubt as to the importance that God places on obedience, we learn of that importance here.

21:49Because of God's everlasting love and faithfulness, we've been created to live in loving obedience to Him. I think it's pretty easy to see the connection. I think it's pretty easy to see the connection between Judah and ourselves. Brothers and sisters, I hope that you are seeing the beauty and the wonder of God and His perfect word. For it is like a mirror held up in front of us that we might be able to see ourselves. But it's not as if that's the cure.

22:29It also provides. Provides us the power that we might be changed. It provides us the ability to do something about the problem and plight that we see in our own lives. So there seems to be a few ways in which this passage helps us. First of all, the Rechabites, who did not know God as the Judeans did, they lived their lives in obedience to their founder, and they did so out of love. Another way to say this is that their love for their founder was very evident in the way that they lived. To put it simply, love motivates life.

23:13And so, what I think that we need to see and learn, what we need to be reminded of first and foremost, most of all, is that obedience is primarily a relational category, not a legal requirement. Obedience is primarily a relational category, not legal requirement. As Jay Stringer says, obedience is a relational category with behavioral implications. Obedience is a relational category with behavioral implications. This is why there's all this talk about love, because love and life fit together.

23:57Following or living your life for Jesus. Is the fruit of love, the fruit of loving relationship, because love motivates life. This is why we begin with the question: what do you love? The second is equally important and helps us discern the first. What are you living for? So it may be helpful to think through a couple of categories. The first category is temporal and eternal. So here's the question. If you are able to lay your life out on paper, you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, if you're able to lay that out on paper, how much of your life would be spent on that which is temporal, temporary, fleeting, will not last? And how much of your life is spent on the eternal?

24:56Temporal versus eternal. Maybe another category, selfish and selfless. Selfish and selfless. So if you're able to fly the drone over your life and you're able to look at your life and your actions, how much of your life and your living would be spent on you, potentially selfish, and how much of your life would be spent loving, serving. Living for the good of others. So maybe two categories. Maybe this helps us to get down to the heart of the issue.

25:41I want to share something with you. As part of our regular devotional liturgy, we regularly read the law in our devotion as a family. And I want to show you this connection between love and life, between temporal, eternal, selfish, selfless. Matthew 22, this will be familiar to you, and it shows up all throughout the New Testament. I think this will be on the screen, and you're going to see multiple colors here, and I'll tell you why in just a moment. Matthew 22, the disciples come to Jesus and they say, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the law? In other words, question that's relevant to us. Jesus, could you please summarize the thousands of pages and teachings that we have heard all these years? Could you just like narrow it down to a couple of things for us? And we all say amen, right? So that's what they're asking. And Jesus says to them, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two depend all the law and prophets, everything. Else summarized in two.

27:04So I want to show you, there's two different colors. My colors are different. If you all would, yep, the green. The green has to do with kingdom. This is a kingdom issue, temporal versus eternal. Are you living your life out of love for God and His kingdom? Are you living for the fleeting pleasures of this world? So that's the first thing. We see that first category. I think the second color has to do with the transformed life that reveals the heart. Selfish versus selfless. Increasingly, as your heart is changed by the power of the Spirit, do you find that life is much less about you?

27:48Are you beginning and continuing to see the people and opportunities before you that you might give yourself for the good of others? Maybe this is one way to get to the heart of the matter. So the first thing is obedience is intensely relational. It has to do with love. And the fruit of loving union with God is a life of obedience. Well, the second thing that I think is helpful for us is to look back at Judah, and that brings this question to mind. How much more should Judah have lived? For God, their heavenly Father, who had demonstrated his everlasting love for them, how much more should Judah have lived in obedience to God?

28:46For God had sought to break through the chaos and confusion of rival gods, rival kingdoms, rival loves, the phrase repeated throughout, amend your ways. Amend your ways. But the more pointed question, brothers and sisters, is how much more should you and I live our lives in obedience to God? Because we have something better than even Judah had. The Son of God Himself coming to earth, sending the Spirit that we might be indwelled. So, how much more should we live for God?

29:46I want to show you how the New Testament brings this together, I think. A few things. Three passages. First one, 1 John 4:19. These will be on the screen. Because God first loved us. We love because God first loved us. We see the sovereign God of the universe taking initiative, moving towards his people by indwelling their hearts. Everything begins with God. He made the first move. Let me say this another way. Our desire to love God and ability to live for him is empowered by his love, which has been poured out on us by the Spirit through Christ.

30:39So, what you can't hear, and what I'm not saying, is I just need to be better, follow the rules. Try harder, do better. That's not 1 John 4:19. We love because He first loved us. It all flows from that. Second one brings more clarity. If you love me, Jesus says, you will obey or keep my commands. John 14. This, brothers and sisters, I think, makes the connection between love and life. Another way to say this is that you will live for what you love.

31:18Because just like every tree bears fruit, so every life reveals what's in the heart, what one truly loves. Obedience. is primarily about love. And then grace-driven effort, grace-driven life flows from that as we live to please him in every way. Last one, John 15, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love, Jesus says. If you keep my commandments, you abide in my love, just as the Father, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. Loving obedience, living life surrendered to God's will and ways, is the way of Jesus. And as Christians, little Christs, it will be our way as well. It's how we will remain in Christ.

32:30And it's how we will experience His joy as well. Well, finally, as we close, maybe most practically, I hope, answering the question, how do we live a life of loving obedience to our gracious and compassionate God? Maybe three categories as you think about your own life. Out of love for God, spend your best time. Knowing God and investing into the people and things of God. Out of love for God, spend your best time knowing God and investing into the people and things of God.

33:21It's hard. It's no wonder because the war that we wage is not one of it's not a physical war, it's not of flesh and blood, it's a spiritual battle. In any other relationship, friend, family member, spouse, we would never expect to grow in loving union with that person without considerable time, energy, and effort. And yet, it's so challenging. It's so difficult to spend our lives and give our time in knowing the Lord, just the truth. But it is the way.

34:13And we have God's Spirit. So I want to encourage you to center your life around God and His people. Center your life around God and His people, around gathered worship, around knowing. Being known by others. Listen, I know that life group is not always your favorite thing. And it's not required, so that's fine. I know that 11 a.m. discipleship, whether that's a class or coffee and conversation, is maybe not your favorite thing. But centering our lives around God and His people is one of the ways in which our love and affection for Him and for one another grows.

35:13So please invest your time, your best time, into knowing God, to His people, the things of God. Paul says this, Galatians 5. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time. Because you know this: that days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. First thing. Second thing, out of love for God, spend your talent. Spend your talent, your God-given gifts and abilities, seeking to make much of God by serving others with the skills you've been given.

36:13Out of love for God, spend your talent seeking to make much of God by serving. Look at me, there's not another person like you. There's not another person like you. There are people, there are places that need you. Not someone else, they need you. And we can't be all that we were meant to be if you are not who God's made you to be. I know how you feel about that. Because I feel the same. Like Moses and everyone else in the Bible. Yeah, but God, I God, I'm not a preacher.

37:19God says, these are your people. So I know we can't be all that we were meant to be. Be if you're not all that God's called you to be. So, I want to gently and lovingly encourage you: if you're on the sidelines, we need you in the game. We're on a journey. Actually, we're at war. None of us can do it alone. So, please, out of love for God, spend your talent to live and serve and give your life for the good of others. We all need it. Finally, out of love for God, spend your money, spend your resources, spend your life laying up treasure in heaven.

38:29What does it profit a person to gain everything this world has to offer and lose your soul? I know you've heard that. The question: nothing, no profit at all. Brothers and sisters, may the entire aim of our lives, may the entire direction of our lives, Be that of making much of God. So, in all of your spending, in all of your saving, in all of your possessions, don't hear me saying these are evil because you and I know people who are doing that well. We also know people, including maybe ourselves, that are not doing that well. But I'm saying everything, God's intention is that everything, the entire aim of your life, would be directed in one direction.

39:31That's the third thing. So, if all of this sounds daunting, it's because it is easy to say, hard to do. But as one of your pastors, as your pastors, the nine elders here, we want to walk with you and help you. We don't believe that our primary responsibility is preaching and teaching from this stage. We are called to be shepherd among the sheep, shepherds among the sheep, which means we enter in the good, bad, and otherwise. So, if all of this sounds daunting, know that you don't have to wait and you don't have to do it alone.

40:21Remember, because of God's everlasting love and faithfulness, we've been created to live in loving obedience to Him. And so, I don't know where you find yourself this morning, but I want to encourage you and maybe challenge you to devote yourselves fully to knowing Him, to growing in union with Him, and then living for Him, because obedience is the fruit of our liberation from sin and our union with Christ. What great news! Christ empowers us, and we have one another.

41:04Let's pray, Father, even now, just aware of the many things that we love, many good things. I pray, God, that you would help us by your word, through your Spirit, through your people, help us to reform our understanding, our view of that which we love. Help us to see the connection between our hearts and our loves and lives lived. May it be true of us that because of your great love for us in Christ, we have obeyed you. We are walking in your ways. We are bringing glory to you.

42:30We know that that doesn't require perfection, for there would be no need for Jesus. But you've called us to faithfulness. So we pray that you would empower us. We pray that you would help us through the living of our lives together. That gradually, in an ongoing way, we would all be able to look back and we would be able to say, look at what God has done. I've seen the growth in obedience in my life and in your life.

43:15Praise Him. We pray that you would do that work in us by your grace. In Jesus' name, 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.