Pedigree "Fjc"

PEDIGREE “FJC”

Jeremiah 9:23-24

.INTRO: An older woman was cruising a busy parking lot in her new Mercedes-Benz looking in vain for a parking space. She finally saw someone loaded with packages heading for a car, so she followed him, put on her blinker and waited patiently until he pulled out.

Just as he pulled out a young man in a sleek black Porsche zipped in to the space ahead of her. She was dumbfounded and outraged, and jumped out of her car, shouting, "How could you do that? Didn’t you see me waiting there with my signal on?"

He smiled an arrogant smile and replied, "That’s what you can do when you’re young and fast."

As the young man was about to enter the store he heard the hideous crunch of metal striking metal. He ran back, horrified, to see that the woman had gunned her Mercedes and smashed it into his beautiful black Porsche. He ran back and cried, "How could you do that?"

She smiled back at him and replied, "That’s what you can do when you’re old and rich!"

. We all like to let people know who we are don’t we.

. There were three boys sitting around one day and one said to another, My daddy is stronger than your daddy, the one he was talking to said well my daddy is stronger than your daddy and the one who had started the conversation retorted back that his daddy could beat up the other boy’s daddy. This went on for a little while. The back and forth that goes on between young boys like this. The third boy had been sitting there listening to this and finally he had something to say. He said my daddy can do all the things that your dad can do but guess what, my Momma can beat up my daddy.

. We all like to brag a little bit don’t we?

. As we look into our scripture this morning. We see that the nation of Judah had abandoned God for the most part and were worshipping other god’s and idols. They were becoming dependent upon themselves and were not trusting in God . They were becoming self sufficient in their own minds.

. Whereas in the past, their ancestors would tell the story of God and how He saved His people from bondage and slavery and how he brought them into the promised land.

. The land that they were now living in.

. They were not depending on God they were depending upon themselves.

. After all they were successful. They had good land and good crops and they had all the luxuries that the world could offer and they had forgotten where their blessings had come from.

. There’s an old Jimmy Stewart movie called Shenandoah and Stewart played a hard working farmer and the family was sitting around the table getting ready to eat and this is the blessing that the character prayed.

. “Lord, we plowed the field, we planted the field, we harvested the crop. We cooked it and put it on the table. It wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for our hard work. But we thank you for it anyway. Amen.”

. Bragging about themselves and how it was them and their hard work, their knowledge of how to work in the fields that had produced the food.

. They gave God absolutely no credit.

. Our scripture this morning talks about this arrogance that can creep into our lives and how we are to deal with it.

. Lets read our scripture: Jeremiah 9:23-24

. This is what the LORD says:

“Don’t let the wise boast in their iwisdom,

or the powerful boast in their power,

or the rich boast in their riches.

24But those who wish to boast

should boast in this alone:

that they truly know me and understand that I am the LORD

who demonstrates unfailing love

and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,

and that I delight in these things.

I, the LORD, have spoken!

. Jeremiah was warning the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem specifically that there was going to be a reckoning.

. That God wasn’t going to put up with this arrogance much longer. They needed to come back to God and realize just who they should be worshipping and giving credit to for all their blessings.

. The first thing we see here in verse twenty three is that the intellectuals were boasting about their so called knowledge.

. God says that you’re not as smart as you think you are.

. You can’t depend on knowledge. Yet it seems that many would rather boast of their knowledge than revel in the mysteries of God.

. We haven’t changed much.