1.2.09 UNREQUITED LOVE Jer 18:1-17
INTRO
Do you remember the days of your first crush – when you fell head over heels in love with someone, but found out to your pain that the other person didn’t feel the same about you.
Unrequited love – or love that is not reciprocated can take other forms. The parable of the Prodigal Son is one example – a story in which a father’s deep love and affection for his son is not reciprocated by the son for the father.
POINT / APPLIC
It happens in families – whether it is a relationship between parents and their children or brothers and sisters, there can be a deep love and longing for a relative, but one which is not reciprocated – The love is spurned. It happens between partners in a marriage too.
POINT
There are strong similarities here between God’s love for his people and the way his people spurned that love and set their affection on other things.
This was in fact the singlemost factor that led to the downfall of God’s people Israel. Their heart’s affection became set on other things – on idols. And God was hurt by their spiritual adultery, betrayal and the consequences for his people that came about as a result.
CHALLENGE: I wonder whether you and I realize just how much it matters to God that give God our heart’s affection before anything else?
That we respond to his first and greatest commandment to: ‘Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength’
For to love is to do more than show affection. It means to do right and to ally ourselves with God’s cause.
READING: JEREMIAH 18:1-17
RECAP:
• We are looking at the Scriptures as though they were written as a drama.
• The idea is that we see the big picture and so see ourselves within it.
• All too often we immerse ourselves in one part of the story and fail to see the relevance of it to ourselves because we don’t look at it as though it were either part of our own history or part of our future.
• To see the big picture is to find ourselves in the biblical story.
• In Act 1 we saw: The Curtain raised
• In Act 2: The catastrophic result of sin
• In Act 3 Scene 1 God’s choice of Abraham to be the father of not only the nation of Israel, but the spiritual father of those who become believers in Christ.
And so we looked last week at our place in the biblical story as ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ‘1 Peter 2:9
This week we are in Act 3 scene 2
And we are going to sweep through the rest of the Old Testament to observe the one thing that went wrong time and time again in the relationship between the people of God and God himself – their unfaithfulness to him.
POINT
The biblical story reads like an unhappy marriage in which the wife shows no true affection for her husband but whose affection is relentlessly given to others.
In Genesis Adam and Eve betrayed their trust in God by committing the first sin with dire consequences for the world and humankind – Instead of showing their love, trust and loyalty to God they listened to the voice of temptation and were seduced away from this – choosing instead to try to be like gods themselves. They placed their affections on something else other than their creator.
In Exodus When the Hebrews went in to possess the Promised Land a man named Achan coveted some of the riches that had been dedicated to the Lord for destruction, and he hid them under his tent. The result was that Israel became subject to destruction and only recovered when the sin of Aachan was discovered and Achan was dealt with ruthlessly. He placed his affection on riches rather than on obedience to the word of God.
In the time of the Judges when the people of Israel had settled into the Promised Land they were seduced away from the Lord whose commandments included: ‘Do not have any other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth You shall not bow down to them or worship the.’
Once they had settled in the land they defiantly broke God’s command and they worshiped the Baals – the gods of the pagans of the agricultural land, and entered into the fertility rituals that the people practiced. The result was that they were plundered by their enemies time and time again because they had opted to break faith with God and go it alone. Once again their affections were placed elsewhere. The book ends with war.
In the time of Samuel Israel was transformed into a kingdom, and God made a covenant with King David. But his son Solomon and grandsons Jeroboam and Rehoboam were to break faith with the covenant.
The book of Kings describes the pattern of the people’s unfaithfulness to God.
Solomon takes foreign wives. Their idolatrous influence on the future leaders of the nation has deadly consequences.
The Kingdom of Israel was split:
Ten tribes of Israel went to the north to Samaria under the leadership of Jeroboam.
The remaining two under Rehoboam remained in Judah.
But because Jeroboam refused to allow religious pilgrimages to the temple in Jerusalem he set up rival idolatrous places of worship at Dan and Bethel for the worship of golden calves.
The Kingdom was divided.
Elijah and Elisha appear in the north. They speak from God. But Baal worship becomes more prevalent.
2 Kings
Finally Assyria lays siege to Samaria and deports the northern tribes. It is the end of the northern Kingdom.
2 Kings 17:7-23 explains that it was because of disobedience to the covenant that this took place.
Judah in the south was not far behind. Eventually the Babylonians arrived to do battle with them.
Isaiah and Jeremiah speak into the situation.
The people were complacent and did not believe they could be overcome.
But the Babylonian invasion led to the destruction of the temple and the walls. Most of the people are exiled to Babylon as slaves.
APPLIC –This is your spiritual history
The Prophets spoke from God to the people both North and South in these turbulent times. In various ways they drew the attention of the people to the truth that they had set their affections on something else other than their creator – on idols and riches. And it showed in their behavior.
The prophets denounced their sin and foretold their exile.
The Day of the Lord’ is now pictures as a day of judgment and not of blessing.
But the exile is not pictured as the end as a new covenant foresee:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
"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.
[32] It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,"
declares the Lord.
[33] "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the Lord.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
[34] No longer will a man teach his neighbour,
or a man his brother, saying, ’Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the Lord.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
This is a reference to the New Covenant that Jesus came to give.
POINT The Exile was a Catastrophe for the people.
Israel and Judah both setting their affections on something other than God and they had placed themselves outside of the bounds of his protection. But this was not the end.
Ezra and Nehemiah became the agents of restoration.
King Cyrus repatriated the exiles.
The temple was rebuilt and the walls restored. The people were back in the land.
But at the end of the OT the future is uncertain.
The prophets speak positively about the future.
God had not forgotten his promise.
His kingdom will be established in the whole earth..
The OT ends with hope.
POINT
If this were theatre then:
• The cast would be Israel,
• the plot would be the covenant and commandments
• the stage would be the world
• and the performance a TRAGEDY – yet one with hope
The curtain falls at the end of Act 3 and we are left to wonder what the outcome will be.
APPLIC
The worship of idols brings ruin.
• Idolatry today could include such things as trusting in social science to give us the pattern for an ideal society,
• and technology for greater material prosperity.
• It could include trusting in the economy to give us security
Augustine
Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshiped.
Idolatry is centering our lives around some part of creation rather than on God,
and this includes the world of ideas.
POINT
It is no wonder we find the exhortation in the New Testament letter I John 5: keep yourselves from idols
APPLIC
The inclination of our hearts may always be to be seduced towards idolatry = centering our lives on something other than God.
CHALLENGE
What is more important to you than anything else today?
If it is not first and foremost the guarding of your relationships with God then you are likely to repeat the errors of your spiritual ancestors.
POINT
God’s plea to the his people through the prophet Jeremiah was: ‘Can I not do with you as this potter does?’
POINT
To make good vessels a potter needs good clay.
Clay that is resistant – that does not have enough moisture in it or has lumps can spoil in the potter’s hands.
It is difficult to work with and may have air bubbles in it that will cause the pot to explode when it is being fired.
APPLIC
What is the spiritual parallel to this?
God wants us to be teachable. The Bible tells us:
‘Do not resist the Holy Spirit’
Col. 3:1-3 tells us:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. [2] Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. [3] For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
APPLIC/CHALLENGE
It appears from the Scriptures that the root cause of all of our problems is idolatry in one form of other – that is the setting of our affections on something other than God.
• Is Jesus really your Lord as well as your Saviour?
• Is there any possibility that you might find yourself beyond the boundaries of God’s favour and protection because you have placed yourself there?
God has commissioned us to be witnesses in our land.
We are now custodians of the message of Good News – the Gospel – to live out and share with others in our places of work and in our families and neighbourhoods?
Are you as clay in the hands of the potter?
CONCL
PRAYER Pastor Joe Wright, Central Christian Church, Kansas
Heavenly Father, we come before You today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance.
We know that Your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil "good" but that is exactly what we’ve done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.
We confess, Father, that we have ridiculed the absolute Truth of Your Word and called it "moral pluralism".
We have worshipped other gods and called it "multi-culturalism"
We have exploited the poor and called it "the lottery".
We have neglected the needy and called it "self-preservation"
We have rewarded laziness and called it "welfare"
We have killed our unborn and called it "choice".
We have shot abortionists and called it "justifiable".
Father, we have neglected to discipline our children and called it "building esteem".
We have abused power and called it "political savvy".
We have coveted our neighbors possessions and called it "ambition".
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it "freedom of expression"
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our Fore-fathers and called it "enlightenment"
Search us, O God, and know our hearts today - Try us and see if there be any wicked way in us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Pray
