Recent sermons

         Imagine your doctor calls you up one day and tells you, ``I've got good news and bad news.'' The bad news is that you're going to die within a month. The Good news is that if you significantly change your whole lifestyle right now…A regular program of rigorous exercise for 20 minutes a day, 4 times a week, reducing saturated fats, refined sugars, carbs and calories in your diet, getting 8 hours of sleep a night, keeping your weight down, reducing the stress level in your work and then sustain that change from now on, you'll live a long and happy life.'' The Question: Could you make the change? Sounds like a no-brainer. I'll change. I'll change. Of course, we'll say `` Yes, I'll change'' and of course, we'll begin to make those changes: working out, eating more fresh vegetables, and so on. But its not long before our enthusiasm tapers off, and soon the odds are 9 to 1 that we'll be right back to square one. No change at all. Even though it has been clearly shown that at least 80 % of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes and 40% of all cancer can be prevented by not smoking, eating healthy diets and regular physical exercise. What we know and how we live are two very different things.
         For example: People who have had heart bypass surgery, most definitely a life-and-death matter, are directed by their doctors to change their eating habits, stop smoking, exercise, significantly change the way they live. And they know..they fully understand that they must make those changes. They know that if they don't they will die much sooner than they need to YET. Research study after research study shows that in just two years after such major surgery, 90 % of these patients have not significantly changed their behavior. Real change is just too tough.
         Way back in Exodus 19, at Mount Sinai, God initiates a special relationship with God's people. (Ex. 19:5-6) ``If you obey me fully and keep my covenant'' Then ``you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'' What an offer! It's a no-brainer. Just like the options laid out to us by our medical doctor, they too said. (Ex. 19:8) "We will do everything the LORD has said." So God wrote it out clearly in stone, exactly what God expected of them, I imagine big letters so everyone could see and understand. ``Thou shalt not…..'' But it wasn't long and they were dancing around some golden calf, complaining about the food, the accommodations..wishing they were back in Egypt. And all along God sent them Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Deborah, Josiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel..kings and prophets and prophetesses. Reminding them, almost hounding them to abide by the covenant God has provided for them. I mean there is no way they could claim that they really didn't understand what God expected of them.
         In our lives too, We've had how many years of Sunday School teachers each week preparing a lesson for us, leading a discussion for us. How many hours, from toddlers on, have our parents and grandparents read us Bible stories? How many sermons and conferences and assemblies and radio broadcasts and lectures have we heard? How many notebooks of detailed Bible Studies have we filled? There is no possible way we can say to God: ``Lord, If I had only know n that that was sin, I never would have done it. If you, Lord had only told me what you wanted from me, I sure would have done it !'' Ignorance, the lack of head-knowledge, is not what causes us to break God's heart, purposefully disobey, intentionally ignore the call of God in our lives.
         So God calls up a new prophet for Judah. A young teenager named Jeremiah. Right there, it should tell us as youth that God doesn't see age as a requirement for being used by God. And God tells the rest of us that we can never dismiss the new voice of our youth among us. God is about to establish a new relationship and he begins with a young prophet named Jeremiah. And Jeremiah now does what so many before him have done: he pleads, he argues, he demonstrates in the street, he does everything possible in ever possible place to get their attention to get them to return to following the Lord God. In fact, for almost 80 years, Jeremiah warns, and objects and cries out trying to bring them back from disaster. But if we really don't want to change; no amount of ``Thou shalt not'' will alter our behavior.
         Finally, God uses this young prophet to give us one of the most profound and most moving passages in the entire Bible. It is simple and effective. Jeremiah prophesies: VS 31 ``The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.'' The Sinai covenant has been broken over and over. God is terminating it; its obsolete; its ineffective. If the horse is dead, stop trying to ride it! The exile was about to happen . God is removing them from the land God had given them. God is sending them back into captivity, just as they had been before God delivered them from Egypt back to square one! God is starting over.
This young Jeremiah brings a new word: Jeremiah declares that redemption of God's people is possible only if God himself intervenes . ``I will make a new covenant'' VS 32 ``it will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers.'' Its time to start a new chapter in this relationship with God because the old one is broken. VS 33: ``This is the covenant…I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.'' You see, earlier the law, the guidance of the Lord was just ``set before the people''. Deuteronomy 11:32 ``be sure that you obey all the decrees and laws I am setting before you today.'' It was set out there. Sort of like cosmetics that are used to paste over and cover up and make us look glamorous, but its only on the outside. Its not really absorbed inside. Its done so that by all appearances we look young and vibrant.
But this new covenant will not be like that. ``I will put my law, my guidance, my wisdom, my intentions in their minds, and write it on their hearts.'' From now on, God is determined to work not with a set of rules and regulations, and warnings and teachings but with a relationship implanted deep within. You know, when our motivation for doing something is external, because the folks said to, or the teacher insisted, or the boss demanded or the preacher said so…I don't care what authority figure you want to pick up. When our motivation is from the outside, it breeds two things: (1) hypocrisy: A two-faced lifestyle. Doing or saying one thing when they are present but as soon as they aren't in our face, we relax and do or say who we really are. (2) It breeds a resentment toward the motivator. We do as little as possible as slow as possible hoping for the day we'll be out from under their influence. For so long, when the world has looked at Christianity, it has seen those two traits many many times: No problem with Jesus..but a big problem with the hypocrisy and the self-seeking lifestyle basically resenting the Sovereignty of God.
         Let me give you an example. In my High School days and up through the first two years of college. I was never convinced that I really wanted this education. I did as little as possible as late as possible just to get by. My motivation was entirely from the outside! Oh I heard it was important. I felt the pressure from parents and others to do my best, but when I had a choice between studying and any other option.. I always chose the other option. Between my sophomore and junior years in college I went with MCC for two years to the Congo and saw the real pain of malnutrition, I experienced the joy of service and I came back with passion, with determination, with a sense of purpose. An inner fire was lit. Suddenly without anyone standing over me, I spent time in the library reading on Friday nights! Weird! I studied nights and weekends, I couldn't get enough of it. I had a passion in my heart for the hungry, the poor and I didn't need someone trying to motivate me. It was an inside job.
         You see, That is what God wants to do in all of us: an inside job. We can talk about becoming a missional congregation, about building a relationship with neighbors and it will be just so many rambling words, pushed and encouraged by someone out there. But its only when we hurt for those who've never experienced what forgiveness is, Only when it become intolerable for us inside to know that a neighbor, a fellow-student, a peer on the job is going through life without ever experiencing the unconditional love of Jesus Christ. Only when it is an inside job, written powerfully on our own hearts; only then will God's mission in the world take fire within us. Life is so much easier when the passion, the desire is already there on the inside.
         Vs 34 ``No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, saying `know the Lord'', because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.'' To know God is no longer some religious instruction pasted on the outside of an unchanged heart. The word ``know'' here as in so many other places in scripture does not mean to understand the facts about someone. It means to experience intimately, personally, the personality, the joy, the love, the delight of that other. And right here, God gives us a picture of what happened on Pentecost. What had been an elitist relationship with a single chosen nation of Israel, now would be opened for all people; Jew and gentile, slave and free, male and female; no distinction; no favorites. ``they will all know me , from the least of them to the greatest.'' Gone will be all elements of some selective elite community. You see, God is out there, revealing Himself to all people. All whom the Lord loves, all who experience the Lord drawing them will know Him.
         A new covenant: Beginning with God's intervention, ``For I will forgive their wickedness and I will remember their sins no more .'' I will make a new covenant, I will put it in their minds, I will write it in their hearts. The New Covenant, fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Shown so clearly in Christ's death and resurrection. And because of God's intervention on our behalf, A whole new situation ``I will be their God and they will be my people.'' Gone is all the dependency on keeping the letter of the law, Gone is all dependency on going to the right temple, sacrificing the right amount, belonging to the right nation, Instead, God implants a new life, a new relationship with us filled with his Grace, His Holy Spirit. Lived not because we ought but because our love of God compels us to.