Iliff and Saltillo UM Churches
February 15, 2004
How to Avoid Consequences
Jeremiah 17:5-10
INTRODUCTION: Think back to when you were in school. How many of you were guilty of taking something sharp and carving a heart on a school desk, or on a tree in the playground, or even on a textbook and writing a name or initials on it? Maybe even the date was recorded.
I don’t know why we were always wanting to do that. Just wanted to. You might find names and dates that mark the spot where you stood years and years ago. Sometimes it might be a name you would like to erase, but it has cut deep into the finish of the wood or tree. You are embarrassed by it now. You can’t get it off because it is too deep. Sometimes you cringe when you see how you have defaced school property. How could I have done that?
Jeremiah, the prophet, begins Chapter 17 by saying that the sin of the people of Judah was so deep that it was like it had been engraved with an iron tool and inscribed with a flint point on the tablets of their heart. He said that through their own fault they will lose the inheritance that the Lord gave them and would be enslaved to their enemies in a land that they didn’t know. He was saying your sin that you have engraved so deeply on your hearts is going to catch up with you. It won’t just embarrass you, but you will experience the consequences of that sin. You will be the losers for having sinned.
Too many times, we like these people, experience the pain and consequences over and over again. We make wrong choices again and again. For some reason we can’t seem to "get it right." It seems that every time we sin we engrave the sin a little bit more. We may start the new year by saying, "I’m going to turn over a new leaf. I’m going to make a fresh start. I’m going to get my life straightened up."
God doesn’t want us to experience the pain and consequences of sin time and time again. Sometimes we think we can’t do anything else. God loved his people so much in Jeremiah’s day but they were going about things in the wrong way. Let’s see what we can get out of today’s scripture that will help us to avoid consequences in the future.
1. The Self Sufficient Person: Jeremiah contrasts two different types of people. He could plainly see that the people of Judah were in the first category. They were trusting in their own self sufficiency and in the strength of man--the Egyptians to help them out. They were fearful of their Assyrian and Babylonian enemies, but they thought their friends would help them out. Jeremiah lived at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century B. C. In those turbulent years prior to the destruction, God’s people were not making good choices with regard to people they trusted. They were looking to Egypt to save them from Nebuchadnezzer, king of Babylon. They made unwise alliances with Egypt and were trying to buy Pharaoh’s protection. Instead of trusting in the Lord, they were relying totally upon people. They were leaving God out of the picture.
The Message Bible makes this a little clearer.
"Cursed is the strong one who depends on mere humans, who thinks he can make it on muscle alone and sets God aside as dead weight." (verse 5).
The beginning of consequences for us is when we think we don’t need God at the center of our lives. We say, "I can handle this. I will catch you later God. I have the skill I need and besides that I have a lot of friends and family who will help me if I need it."
"I will live my life as I want to," we say. "I don’t want God coming in and messing it up." Consequences are on the way. Something drastic has to happen to put a stop to our willful actions.
STORY: A janitor was getting very upset at a high school where in the girl’s restroom the teens wrote all over the restroom mirror with lipstick and also marked the mirror with kisses in lipstick. Every day he was having to clean the mirror. He was tired of it.
One day he came up with a plan. He walked into the restroom with a plunger and used it in the toilets. He walked out in plain sight of the onlookers and put the plunger all over the mirror and said, "You know where this has been?"
From that day on the problem stopped.
Jeremiah describes the person who goes willfully on his own way:
(a.) He will be like a bush in the wasteland--a shrub in the desert. You might say that when God is not in your life you are like a tumbleweed that has no roots--bouncing around from place to place--symbolizing a life that is getting no spiritual life in order to grow. The tumbleweed blows across the road and rolls aimlessly. Like the tumbleweed people without God have no roots at all. No faith, no ties, no obligation. They avoid commitment.
(b.) Jeremiah says that the person who lives on the surface of life will never grow. He goes on to say that he will not see prosperity when it comes. Maybe it is because they are so busy struggling with one thing after another. They miss the opportunities when God DOES send them. It will just pass by and they will not be able to see them.
(c.) He will dwell in parched places of the desert in a salt land where no one lives. When we live our life without God we are never going to be more than a shrub in the wilderness. Sometimes people think that things always have to be like this. That God wants them to live in one continual crises after the other. Up one day and down the next. Always churned up inside. Always fighting with someone. Always feeling the consequences of their foolish decisions.
2. The Person Who Acknowledges God: But Jeremiah says, "No, it doesn’t have to be that way. You’re just believing a lie of the devil." He goes on to say, "but blessed is the [person] who trusts in the Lord" (v.7). He uses the picture of a tree to describe that person. What kind of a tree? Think about trees for a minute.
An evergreen tree--tall and majestic
An apple tree--bearing good fruit
A weeping willow--bending with the wind
An oak tree--a bit nutty
You are not like just any old tree springing up just anywhere. You are like a CHOICE tree planted in the best of soil--
PLANTED or REPLANTED by the water.
Firmly established--spreading out its roots--having a good root system
As a Christian are you like this choice tree that has a good root system that goes down deep--you are getting the refreshing water of Life--you are being nurtured spiritually?
He says those that make God their hope will be like this tree. They will flourish like a tree that is always green--leaves don’t wither. Won’t have to worry when things go bad in the economy--no fear of a drought. Just keeps right on bearing fruit. When the heat comes they will not sustain any damage.
Are you this kind of a Christian???
We know that God wants things to be better for us--to be able to live our lives without continually having to deal with consequences over and over. But this doesn’t happen automatically. We say, "I continue to fail over and over again."
What’s the problem here?
STORY: Two mountain boys spotted a bobcat up a tree and decided to have some fun. One said, "I’ll shinny up that tree and chase him down, and you put him in a sack."
The other agreed and the first fellow climbed up the tree. When he reached the right limb, he started shaking, and the cat came tumbling down. The other fellow grabbed him by the back of the neck and tried to put him into the sack. There was a terrible commotion. Dust and fur and skin were flying in all directions. The fellow in the tree called down, "What’s the matter, you need help catching one little ol’ bobcat?"
"No," replied his friend. "I don’t need help catchin’ him. I need help turnin’ him a-loose!"
3. The Heart Problem: Our hearts have been inclined toward sin from the day we were born. We also have a hard time "turning sin a-loose." Jeremiah says this in verse 9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"
The heart occupies the most important place in the human system. The word refers to man’s entire mental and moral activity both rational and emotional. Scripture regards the heart as the sphere of Divine Influence. The heart lying deep within us contains the real person.
Matthew 15:19, 20 says, "For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander."
STORY: A little boy was explaining basic Christian theology to his younger sister. He said, "you see, it was Jesus’ job to die for our sins; it’s our job to sin."
Sometimes this is the way we think.
The heart is deceitful--no one can figure it out.
But God searches the heart and the motives. He can get to the root of our problem. He can identify things as they really are. Not just as they seem to be. The incurable heart problem can only be healed by complete trust in God.
CONCLUSION: To avoid consequences we have to give God permission to search our hearts and to bring to the surface things that are causing us problems--the sin, the hidden motives for why we do things.
"I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind" (verse 10).
David prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit in me" (Psalm 51:10 KJV).
The Message Bible puts it this way, "Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean. Scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes. Give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me" (Psalm 51).
This is how to avoid consequences.
Let Us Pray:
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Marilyn Murphree
ICQ#: 58855823
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