joelkaki
June 24th 2003, 12:23 AM
I asked for critique on one of my messages on Jeremiah 9:23-24 a while back in my "Good Sermons" thread, and due to comments there, comments elsewhere, and my own thinking and reading, I completely reworked that sermon. So, if any of you who critiqued last time would like to do so again, please do so. And any of you who did not, please do so as well. And please, only honest opinions are wanted.
Thanks.
JEREMIAH 9:23-24
There was once a brilliant young man who was born a little less than two hundred years ago. He was accepted into the United States Military Academy at West Point, and through his four years there, never received a single demerit. He graduated from West Point as one of the most promising young officers, and fought in Mexico in the mid-1800's. He distinguished himself there, and was, before the start of the Civil War, offered the command of the whole United States military by President Abraham Lincoln. Instead, though, he took command of the Confederate forces. He was a military genius, praised by men from both sides of the conflict as one of the best generals of all time. His name was Robert E. Lee. He was an incredibly wise general, a master tactician, a kind, thoughtful man who cared for the men who served under him.
Yet here is how he summed up himself, “I can only say that I am a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation.” What a powerful testimony! He considered himself to be nothing special in himself, and said, “My chief concern is to be an humble, earnest Christian.” Here we have a man who was incredibly talented and gifted, but rather than boasting in those, said he was only a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation. He knew God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son, and that the was the most important thing in all of life to him.
That is how we must also be. The most important thing in your life, the most important thing in my life, must be knowing God. I would like to look at a text of Scripture that tells us why knowing God must be so central to our lives as believers. That text is Jeremiah 9, verses 23 and 24.
Jeremiah 9
23 Thus saith the Lord, ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight’, saith the Lord.
This text has come to be one of my favorite passages of Scripture. I love the way it presents its crucial and amazing message. It tells us in an authoritative and awe-inspiring way that the most important thing in our lives must be knowing God. It begins and ends with the solemn declaration, “Thus saith the Lord.” This is something of monumental importance, and it provides a solemn charge both to unbelievers and believers.
If you do not know the Lord, if you have not yet called out to Him to save you from your sins, then do so today, so that you may have the greatest thing in all the world at the center of your life. Your own accomplishments cannot save you; call out to Jehovah today and seek forgiveness for your sins.
But if you have trusted in Christ, then I want you to see today from this portion of God’s inspired word that you must able to echo Robert E. Lee’s words, and say, “I can only say that I am a poor sinner trusting in Christ alone for salvation,” and that your chief concern must be to be a humble, earnest Christian, seeking the Lord’s will. There are so many things going on in our lives sometimes, that we let ourselves get in the center. We oftentimes can become the focal point. What we have to do, what we want to do, what we want others to do for us can often become the most important thing to us. But I hope that you will the glory of God in all its fulness today from this text so that you can do other than make knowing God the most important thing in your life. The first reason, for you who have trusted in Christ today, to have knowing God at the center of your life is that
1. God loves you with a strong, everlasting love. God loves you with a strong, everlasting love. The text says he exercises lovingkindness. That means that he loves you with a strong, steadfast love. That is one of the greatest reasons for placing God at the focal point of your life. He exercises lovingkindness towards you. He chose you before the foundation of the world, in love He predestined you to be conformed to the image of His Son; because of His love he sent His Son to die on the cross for your sins, and because of His love He sent His Holy Spirit to call you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
I have memories of being a young child at church, and there would be times, usually on a Sunday evening, when we would have a hymn-sing. Everybody could ask for their favorites hymns. And many of those times, a child would ask for, “Jesus loves me.” “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.” That is so important for us as Christians to comprehend. Our God loves us; He extends lovingdindness toward us. And you know, it is not just love; it is strong, everlasting love. We are weak, but He is strong. And it is essential that He be strong, for we are not. He loves us, yes, but He also has the strength to back it up. We are weak, but He is strong. We are a frail people who sin all the day long.
Our family was having Bible time one night, and we were talking about sin. My dad asked us children how often we sin. Do we sin once in a while? And I replied, “No, we sin all day long all day strong.” My parents started laughing and asked why I put it like that. I told them that I had seen a commercial on TV for Aleve, the pain-killer, and in the advertisement, it said it works all day long, all day strong, and I carried that over into Bible time.
We do sin all day long and all day strong. But thanks be to God, He loved us even though we are sinners, and he has the strength to overcome sin, to overcome Death and the Devil. And He also loves us forever. God’s love for us His children will never waver, never fade, never diminish. It continues on unchanging, from eternity past to eternity future. And so knowing God must be the most important thing in your life and in mine because God God loves us with a strong, everlasting love. We can rest in that fact, and be assured that though we lose all our wisdom, though we lose all our might and all our strength, and become weaklings or invalids, and though we become the poorest people on the face of the planet, our God loves us with all the power of His majestic being for all eternity.
If you are an unbeliever today, and you don’t have that comfort, that knowledge that God loves you and that you are safe for all eternity in that love, then call on the Lord today. Admit you sin today before God, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross, and Call on His name to save you from your sin, and then you will have the richness of the lovingkindness of God envelope you for the rest of your days. Notice with me now another reason in this text. Not only because God loves us with a strong, everlasting love, but also
2. Because God judges. Because God judges? Hold it! Did I say that right? No, wait, there must be some mistake, that can’t be a reason for placing knowing God at the center of your life. God judges? That’s awful, that’s so...politically incorrect!
Well, it is Biblically correct. It is what Scripture tells us. We know a God who judges sin; a God who is just and acts in accord with that justice. And that is one of the most precious truths of the Bible. Many people want to forget about Hell, forget about justice and punishment, but they are missing out. Am I some morbid, perverted person for thinking so? I hope not.
Look at Galatians 6:14 for a moment:
Galatians 6
14 But God forbid that I should boast except in th cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...
Paul is saying here to boast in the death of Christ on the cross, to boast in the judgement he suffered on the cross. So here is why the judgement of God is so important: Your relationship with the Father is based on His judgement of the Son. Think about that for a moment. Your relationship with the Father is based on His judgement of the Son. Did the Father not execute justice, you would have no relationship with Him. Jesus Christ bore our sins, taking our punishment in our place, so that we we can have access to the Father.
God cannot stand sin. He cannot look on sin, and cannot have it in His presence. If He did not judge sin, then I have no hope of ever coming before His throne, because I sin alot. But all thanks and glory be to God, He judged His Son on my behalf, so that I am thereby able to come before the Father with the Lamb’s spotless garments around me.
Really, when you think about it, lovingkindness requires judgement along with it. If God didn’t judge, if we had no concept of God exercising justice and punishment toward sinners, then we could not fully grasp the greatness of his love. But when we see the awful wrath of God displayed in all its fierceness, the love of God towards us seems that much more wonderful. We can truly see how great God’s love for us is when we see that He punishment he inflicted on Christ. But now notice a third reason with me:
3. Because God applies righteousness to you. Because God applies righteousness to you. Have you ever been wronged by someone? Has someone ever acted unrighteously towards you? I’m sure that someone has before. But God never does. He never acts unrighteously. He never does anything wrong, and he never makes a mistake. And Jesus Christ embodied that righteousness when He came and lived on the earth for 33 years. He lived and died a perfect man who always acted righteously. But here is the exceedingly great part about that. Yes, God acts righteously towards you, but He also applies that righteousness to you. You are credited with that righteousness. Though you have at times gloried in other things, though you have gloried in wisdom, might, and riches, the Lord Jesus was completely righteous, and that righteousness is credited to your account. The Father made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor 5:21). God’s righteousness stands over us because of the application of it to us by the death of Christ.
This application of the righteousness of God to you also must accompany judgement. For God to impute righteousness to you, so that you can stand as one blameless before Him, He had to judge Christ. So the three elements in this passage stand and fall together. Lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness are inextricably tied together. And it is interesting to realize that the whole gospel message is really given to us here in Jeremiah 9, though we may not see it at first glance. Note first of all that it forbids us to glory in earthly things. So it talks about our sin. Then it gets to the lovingkindness of God towards us, and then the judgement on Christ at His death on the cross, which placed our sins on Him, and His righteousness on us. And it tells us that our responsibility: to glory in knowing God. Our responsibility is to trust in the Savior who loves us, and who died for us. So even here in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, foreshadowings of the coming work of the Messiah are clearly seen.
Now, Christian, is where the rubber meets the road. If God loves you with a strong, everlasting love; if He judged His own Son for your shortcoming and your sin, and if He credits you with His righteousness, then how can you make anything more important in your life than knowing that wonderful God? How can you let anything usurp that place in your life? I plead with you not to be enamored with your wisdom, your might, or your riches, because those never saved you in the first place; God did. Place Him at the center! Give Him all the importance, and all the honor and glory for ever and ever! The God who has done so much for you surely deserves to be the focal point of your life! Surely He is worth that! Read and study His word, communicate with Him in prayer, fellowship with His people, use your life, in whatever occupation you may have, to serve Him and to promote His glory! And I can tell you from personal experience that it will be the most rewarding experience of your life.
I have been a number of times now on mission trips to New York City, and those were the greatest experiences of my life. We passed out gospel tracts, ran a Vacation Bible School, shared the gospel with people on the streets, participated in worship services, had times of Bible study and prayer, and on those trips, the focal point was God and our relationship to Him. Those were the greatest times of my life, and I want you, if you have not already, to experience that intense and burning desire to have Christ at the center of your life.
Now, obviously, neither myself nor anyone else does this perfectly. There are definitely times when I become distracted, and I let other things push Christ out of the center. We can become distracted at times with our own accomplishemnts or talents, or own agenda. But we must fight against that, and strive to always have knowing God as the most important thing in our lives. Don’t let the other things in your life control your relationship with God; let your relationship with God control the other things in your life.
But there is a fourth and final reason why knowing God must be the most important thing in your life:
4. Because God works in your life and in the world. Because God works in your life and in the world. Notice the text says that God exercises His attributes in the earth. This is the part of the verse that should excite you in your everyday life. God exercises lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness in your life every day. The blessings that are showered on you each day are from God.
But sin also has consequences. When you boast in yourself and are prideful, there are usually consequences. God may knock you down a peg or two in his justice. But God uses even that to drive you back to Himself. And you can know that all God does in your life is the right thing. Though we may cry foul, and complain that God is unfair, He’s not. You may not like every single little thing that happens in your life, but God uses them for good. And if you want to complain about the trials and testings in your life, and call them unfair, then rememeber that you don’t really deserve the good things either. If you call the seemingly bad things unfair, then it is only right that you call the good things unfair as well. But God is righteous. All that happens to you is righteous.
I’d like to look at another text for a moment in 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 1
[i]26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. 30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption--31 that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’[/b]
This text in itself could be hours worth of speaking, but briefly there are some important things in it that help us to better understand Jeremiah 9. Paul obviously had Jeremiah 9 in mind when he was writing this, and notice that it really gives us the reason that we cannot glory or boast in ourselves. WE cannot be the most important thing in our lives, because we are nothing without God! Christ is the only one worth glory and honor and praise. It is the work of Christ’s Spirit in our lives that we are able to do any good at all. Wisdom, might, and riches cannot be the focus of our lives, because they cannot save us. It is God that called us apart from those things. And our chief concern must be to be a humble, earnest Christian--humble, because our accomplishments are not the greatest thing in the world, and earnest, because God wants no half-hearted Christians.
And this text offers great encouragement to those of us who aren’t particularly mighty, or wise, or rich, because it is God’s wisdom, God’s might, the riches of God’s grace that work in our lives. He can use you, and He can use me. No matter what your social position, no matter what your monetary or financial status is, no matter what you did in the past, and no matter anything else, God can use you! Apart from Him you and I can do nothing, but through Him and the enabling of His Spirit we can accomplish amazing things!
And when you think about it, you should realize that no other message in the world can tell you that same thing. The Bible is the only book of all time that can really tell you that you can be used no matter what your position is. In a world without the God of the Bible, if you are nothing, you are nothing; if you are despised, you are despised; if you are foolish, you are foolish; but with God, you can do great and mighty things. So knowing God must be the most important thing in your life because He can work in you and use you no matter who you are.
There was a man in our church who had, prior to becoming a Christian, a really rough life. I don’t even know the details, but suffice it to say that he had a hard life. One day, though, there was a knock at his door; it was his elderly neighbor. Our at the time unsaved friend said, “Hi! Can I help you with something?” This feeble, elderly old man stuttered, stumbling over his words, “I um, well um, you see um” and so on. “Well, what is it that you want?” “Would you like to go to a Bible study with me?” the elderly man said. The man consented, and within a week called on the name of the Lord and was saved. God can use even a stammering tongue, a feeble old man. And God can use you! He works in your life each and every day! Knowing Him and cultivating your relationship with Him should be the most important thing in your life, because through His working, your life can have meaning and purpose, and you can do great things.
God also works in the world. He works all around you every day. He is building His church and advancing His kingdom. He is restraining evil and Satan. And He is working everything out for His glory and our good. Every detail is in His control. And now notice the last part of verse 24, “For in these I delight, says the Lord.” God delights in loving you, in having a relationship with you, in acting righteously all the time, and in working in your life. Our only proper response then, can be to place knowing Him at the top of the priority list. The most important thing in your life must be knowing God.
This text in Jeremiah 9 contains many wonderful truths that hold the essence of the gospel, and essentials on why God should be at the center of our lives. There are 4 reasons: 1) Because God loves you with a strong, everlasting love. 2) Because God judges. 3) Because God applies righteousness to you. 4) Because God works in your life and in the world. I wonder if Robert E. Lee did not at some point in his life read these verses and use them as the basis for saying, “My chief concern is to be a humble, earnest Christian.” And we would do well not to boast in our own accomplishments and talents, and rather say with complete sincerity, “I can only say that I am a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation."
Thanks.
JEREMIAH 9:23-24
There was once a brilliant young man who was born a little less than two hundred years ago. He was accepted into the United States Military Academy at West Point, and through his four years there, never received a single demerit. He graduated from West Point as one of the most promising young officers, and fought in Mexico in the mid-1800's. He distinguished himself there, and was, before the start of the Civil War, offered the command of the whole United States military by President Abraham Lincoln. Instead, though, he took command of the Confederate forces. He was a military genius, praised by men from both sides of the conflict as one of the best generals of all time. His name was Robert E. Lee. He was an incredibly wise general, a master tactician, a kind, thoughtful man who cared for the men who served under him.
Yet here is how he summed up himself, “I can only say that I am a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation.” What a powerful testimony! He considered himself to be nothing special in himself, and said, “My chief concern is to be an humble, earnest Christian.” Here we have a man who was incredibly talented and gifted, but rather than boasting in those, said he was only a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation. He knew God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son, and that the was the most important thing in all of life to him.
That is how we must also be. The most important thing in your life, the most important thing in my life, must be knowing God. I would like to look at a text of Scripture that tells us why knowing God must be so central to our lives as believers. That text is Jeremiah 9, verses 23 and 24.
Jeremiah 9
23 Thus saith the Lord, ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight’, saith the Lord.
This text has come to be one of my favorite passages of Scripture. I love the way it presents its crucial and amazing message. It tells us in an authoritative and awe-inspiring way that the most important thing in our lives must be knowing God. It begins and ends with the solemn declaration, “Thus saith the Lord.” This is something of monumental importance, and it provides a solemn charge both to unbelievers and believers.
If you do not know the Lord, if you have not yet called out to Him to save you from your sins, then do so today, so that you may have the greatest thing in all the world at the center of your life. Your own accomplishments cannot save you; call out to Jehovah today and seek forgiveness for your sins.
But if you have trusted in Christ, then I want you to see today from this portion of God’s inspired word that you must able to echo Robert E. Lee’s words, and say, “I can only say that I am a poor sinner trusting in Christ alone for salvation,” and that your chief concern must be to be a humble, earnest Christian, seeking the Lord’s will. There are so many things going on in our lives sometimes, that we let ourselves get in the center. We oftentimes can become the focal point. What we have to do, what we want to do, what we want others to do for us can often become the most important thing to us. But I hope that you will the glory of God in all its fulness today from this text so that you can do other than make knowing God the most important thing in your life. The first reason, for you who have trusted in Christ today, to have knowing God at the center of your life is that
1. God loves you with a strong, everlasting love. God loves you with a strong, everlasting love. The text says he exercises lovingkindness. That means that he loves you with a strong, steadfast love. That is one of the greatest reasons for placing God at the focal point of your life. He exercises lovingkindness towards you. He chose you before the foundation of the world, in love He predestined you to be conformed to the image of His Son; because of His love he sent His Son to die on the cross for your sins, and because of His love He sent His Holy Spirit to call you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
I have memories of being a young child at church, and there would be times, usually on a Sunday evening, when we would have a hymn-sing. Everybody could ask for their favorites hymns. And many of those times, a child would ask for, “Jesus loves me.” “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.” That is so important for us as Christians to comprehend. Our God loves us; He extends lovingdindness toward us. And you know, it is not just love; it is strong, everlasting love. We are weak, but He is strong. And it is essential that He be strong, for we are not. He loves us, yes, but He also has the strength to back it up. We are weak, but He is strong. We are a frail people who sin all the day long.
Our family was having Bible time one night, and we were talking about sin. My dad asked us children how often we sin. Do we sin once in a while? And I replied, “No, we sin all day long all day strong.” My parents started laughing and asked why I put it like that. I told them that I had seen a commercial on TV for Aleve, the pain-killer, and in the advertisement, it said it works all day long, all day strong, and I carried that over into Bible time.
We do sin all day long and all day strong. But thanks be to God, He loved us even though we are sinners, and he has the strength to overcome sin, to overcome Death and the Devil. And He also loves us forever. God’s love for us His children will never waver, never fade, never diminish. It continues on unchanging, from eternity past to eternity future. And so knowing God must be the most important thing in your life and in mine because God God loves us with a strong, everlasting love. We can rest in that fact, and be assured that though we lose all our wisdom, though we lose all our might and all our strength, and become weaklings or invalids, and though we become the poorest people on the face of the planet, our God loves us with all the power of His majestic being for all eternity.
If you are an unbeliever today, and you don’t have that comfort, that knowledge that God loves you and that you are safe for all eternity in that love, then call on the Lord today. Admit you sin today before God, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross, and Call on His name to save you from your sin, and then you will have the richness of the lovingkindness of God envelope you for the rest of your days. Notice with me now another reason in this text. Not only because God loves us with a strong, everlasting love, but also
2. Because God judges. Because God judges? Hold it! Did I say that right? No, wait, there must be some mistake, that can’t be a reason for placing knowing God at the center of your life. God judges? That’s awful, that’s so...politically incorrect!
Well, it is Biblically correct. It is what Scripture tells us. We know a God who judges sin; a God who is just and acts in accord with that justice. And that is one of the most precious truths of the Bible. Many people want to forget about Hell, forget about justice and punishment, but they are missing out. Am I some morbid, perverted person for thinking so? I hope not.
Look at Galatians 6:14 for a moment:
Galatians 6
14 But God forbid that I should boast except in th cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...
Paul is saying here to boast in the death of Christ on the cross, to boast in the judgement he suffered on the cross. So here is why the judgement of God is so important: Your relationship with the Father is based on His judgement of the Son. Think about that for a moment. Your relationship with the Father is based on His judgement of the Son. Did the Father not execute justice, you would have no relationship with Him. Jesus Christ bore our sins, taking our punishment in our place, so that we we can have access to the Father.
God cannot stand sin. He cannot look on sin, and cannot have it in His presence. If He did not judge sin, then I have no hope of ever coming before His throne, because I sin alot. But all thanks and glory be to God, He judged His Son on my behalf, so that I am thereby able to come before the Father with the Lamb’s spotless garments around me.
Really, when you think about it, lovingkindness requires judgement along with it. If God didn’t judge, if we had no concept of God exercising justice and punishment toward sinners, then we could not fully grasp the greatness of his love. But when we see the awful wrath of God displayed in all its fierceness, the love of God towards us seems that much more wonderful. We can truly see how great God’s love for us is when we see that He punishment he inflicted on Christ. But now notice a third reason with me:
3. Because God applies righteousness to you. Because God applies righteousness to you. Have you ever been wronged by someone? Has someone ever acted unrighteously towards you? I’m sure that someone has before. But God never does. He never acts unrighteously. He never does anything wrong, and he never makes a mistake. And Jesus Christ embodied that righteousness when He came and lived on the earth for 33 years. He lived and died a perfect man who always acted righteously. But here is the exceedingly great part about that. Yes, God acts righteously towards you, but He also applies that righteousness to you. You are credited with that righteousness. Though you have at times gloried in other things, though you have gloried in wisdom, might, and riches, the Lord Jesus was completely righteous, and that righteousness is credited to your account. The Father made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor 5:21). God’s righteousness stands over us because of the application of it to us by the death of Christ.
This application of the righteousness of God to you also must accompany judgement. For God to impute righteousness to you, so that you can stand as one blameless before Him, He had to judge Christ. So the three elements in this passage stand and fall together. Lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness are inextricably tied together. And it is interesting to realize that the whole gospel message is really given to us here in Jeremiah 9, though we may not see it at first glance. Note first of all that it forbids us to glory in earthly things. So it talks about our sin. Then it gets to the lovingkindness of God towards us, and then the judgement on Christ at His death on the cross, which placed our sins on Him, and His righteousness on us. And it tells us that our responsibility: to glory in knowing God. Our responsibility is to trust in the Savior who loves us, and who died for us. So even here in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, foreshadowings of the coming work of the Messiah are clearly seen.
Now, Christian, is where the rubber meets the road. If God loves you with a strong, everlasting love; if He judged His own Son for your shortcoming and your sin, and if He credits you with His righteousness, then how can you make anything more important in your life than knowing that wonderful God? How can you let anything usurp that place in your life? I plead with you not to be enamored with your wisdom, your might, or your riches, because those never saved you in the first place; God did. Place Him at the center! Give Him all the importance, and all the honor and glory for ever and ever! The God who has done so much for you surely deserves to be the focal point of your life! Surely He is worth that! Read and study His word, communicate with Him in prayer, fellowship with His people, use your life, in whatever occupation you may have, to serve Him and to promote His glory! And I can tell you from personal experience that it will be the most rewarding experience of your life.
I have been a number of times now on mission trips to New York City, and those were the greatest experiences of my life. We passed out gospel tracts, ran a Vacation Bible School, shared the gospel with people on the streets, participated in worship services, had times of Bible study and prayer, and on those trips, the focal point was God and our relationship to Him. Those were the greatest times of my life, and I want you, if you have not already, to experience that intense and burning desire to have Christ at the center of your life.
Now, obviously, neither myself nor anyone else does this perfectly. There are definitely times when I become distracted, and I let other things push Christ out of the center. We can become distracted at times with our own accomplishemnts or talents, or own agenda. But we must fight against that, and strive to always have knowing God as the most important thing in our lives. Don’t let the other things in your life control your relationship with God; let your relationship with God control the other things in your life.
But there is a fourth and final reason why knowing God must be the most important thing in your life:
4. Because God works in your life and in the world. Because God works in your life and in the world. Notice the text says that God exercises His attributes in the earth. This is the part of the verse that should excite you in your everyday life. God exercises lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness in your life every day. The blessings that are showered on you each day are from God.
But sin also has consequences. When you boast in yourself and are prideful, there are usually consequences. God may knock you down a peg or two in his justice. But God uses even that to drive you back to Himself. And you can know that all God does in your life is the right thing. Though we may cry foul, and complain that God is unfair, He’s not. You may not like every single little thing that happens in your life, but God uses them for good. And if you want to complain about the trials and testings in your life, and call them unfair, then rememeber that you don’t really deserve the good things either. If you call the seemingly bad things unfair, then it is only right that you call the good things unfair as well. But God is righteous. All that happens to you is righteous.
I’d like to look at another text for a moment in 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 1
[i]26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. 30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption--31 that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’[/b]
This text in itself could be hours worth of speaking, but briefly there are some important things in it that help us to better understand Jeremiah 9. Paul obviously had Jeremiah 9 in mind when he was writing this, and notice that it really gives us the reason that we cannot glory or boast in ourselves. WE cannot be the most important thing in our lives, because we are nothing without God! Christ is the only one worth glory and honor and praise. It is the work of Christ’s Spirit in our lives that we are able to do any good at all. Wisdom, might, and riches cannot be the focus of our lives, because they cannot save us. It is God that called us apart from those things. And our chief concern must be to be a humble, earnest Christian--humble, because our accomplishments are not the greatest thing in the world, and earnest, because God wants no half-hearted Christians.
And this text offers great encouragement to those of us who aren’t particularly mighty, or wise, or rich, because it is God’s wisdom, God’s might, the riches of God’s grace that work in our lives. He can use you, and He can use me. No matter what your social position, no matter what your monetary or financial status is, no matter what you did in the past, and no matter anything else, God can use you! Apart from Him you and I can do nothing, but through Him and the enabling of His Spirit we can accomplish amazing things!
And when you think about it, you should realize that no other message in the world can tell you that same thing. The Bible is the only book of all time that can really tell you that you can be used no matter what your position is. In a world without the God of the Bible, if you are nothing, you are nothing; if you are despised, you are despised; if you are foolish, you are foolish; but with God, you can do great and mighty things. So knowing God must be the most important thing in your life because He can work in you and use you no matter who you are.
There was a man in our church who had, prior to becoming a Christian, a really rough life. I don’t even know the details, but suffice it to say that he had a hard life. One day, though, there was a knock at his door; it was his elderly neighbor. Our at the time unsaved friend said, “Hi! Can I help you with something?” This feeble, elderly old man stuttered, stumbling over his words, “I um, well um, you see um” and so on. “Well, what is it that you want?” “Would you like to go to a Bible study with me?” the elderly man said. The man consented, and within a week called on the name of the Lord and was saved. God can use even a stammering tongue, a feeble old man. And God can use you! He works in your life each and every day! Knowing Him and cultivating your relationship with Him should be the most important thing in your life, because through His working, your life can have meaning and purpose, and you can do great things.
God also works in the world. He works all around you every day. He is building His church and advancing His kingdom. He is restraining evil and Satan. And He is working everything out for His glory and our good. Every detail is in His control. And now notice the last part of verse 24, “For in these I delight, says the Lord.” God delights in loving you, in having a relationship with you, in acting righteously all the time, and in working in your life. Our only proper response then, can be to place knowing Him at the top of the priority list. The most important thing in your life must be knowing God.
This text in Jeremiah 9 contains many wonderful truths that hold the essence of the gospel, and essentials on why God should be at the center of our lives. There are 4 reasons: 1) Because God loves you with a strong, everlasting love. 2) Because God judges. 3) Because God applies righteousness to you. 4) Because God works in your life and in the world. I wonder if Robert E. Lee did not at some point in his life read these verses and use them as the basis for saying, “My chief concern is to be a humble, earnest Christian.” And we would do well not to boast in our own accomplishments and talents, and rather say with complete sincerity, “I can only say that I am a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation."