Want to start this morning by telling you a little story of a party on a cruise ship. This party on the ship was in full swing one night. You see, speeches were being made by the captain, by the crew, by passengers. And the reason they were celebrating, the reason these speeches were made was in honour of one man sitting at the head of the table, who was a 70 year old man. He was somewhat embarrassed.
You could see on his face that he was shy, but he was doing his best to accept the praise that was being poured upon him. You see, earlier that morning, she had apparently fallen overboard. And within seconds, this elderly gentleman was in the cold, dark waters at her side. The woman was rescued and the elderly man became an instant hero. When time finally came for the brave passenger to speak, the stateroom, the ballroom fell into a hush as he rose from his chair.
He went to the microphone and in what was probably the shortest hero speech ever offered, spoke these stirring words. Thank you for your applause, but I just want to know who pushed me? Sometimes people can become unlikely heroes. Unlikely heroes. What is it that makes someone a hero?
What is it that gives someone courage to stand up against dangerous odds? If we look at the Bible, there are some common trends we see about the heroes of the faith. The Elijahs, the Daniels, the Marys, the Rahabs. This morning, I want to look at the life of another unlikely faith hero, the man called Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet of God who lived during the time of the exile, and began his work roughly in June.
And it finished roughly when he was taken into Egypt at about May. During his lifetime, he saw the Assyrians, the once powerful and dreaded enemies of Israel and Judah crumble and fall, the first great superpower of that time. But Jeremiah warned of a coming disaster that would be even more devastating to the people of Judah. A disaster coming due to the idolatry of this people. He saw his prophecies fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of a new enemy, Babylon.
Let's have a read this morning of the moment, however, where it all started for Jeremiah, where God thrust this guy into the spotlight and gave him the news that would change his life forever. Let's turn to Jeremiah chapter 1. Jeremiah 1:1, and we're going to read to verse 10. Jeremiah 1:1. The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin.
The word of the Lord came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah, and through the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, of Judah, down to the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile. The word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Ah, sovereign Lord, I said, I do not know how to speak.
I am only a child. But the Lord said to me, do not say I am only a child. You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord. Then the Lord reached out His hand and touched my mouth and said to me, now I have put My words in your mouth.
See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. So far, our reading. The very first thing we see at the start of Jeremiah's letter or Jeremiah's prophetic account is that God is the one who moves first. God is the one who moves first in Jeremiah's life. God in His sovereignty comes to Jeremiah, not the other way around.
Jeremiah doesn't go up to God. God moves first and the Bible says, now the word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. That's verse 5.
There are several things here that we see about this wonderful, yet terrifying encounter with God. First of all, we come to see the knowledge and the understanding that God has. God tells Jeremiah that He knew him before he was born. God knew him before he was born. God saw him when he was formed within the womb.
He already knew Jeremiah's strengths. He already knew Jeremiah's weaknesses. He already knew that Jeremiah would possess what God wanted him to possess, to be used particularly during this trying time of Israel's history. And before Jeremiah was born, God had already set him apart for a special task, which He would give him years later as a young adult. Friends, God knows us.
The sovereign God who knows everything and is over everything, we've just sung about that again this morning, knows us. He knows our strengths. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our abilities. He knows our intellect.
He knows our physical strengths and weaknesses. He knows our limitations. He knows us in this way even before we were born. Before we were conceived. Before we were a twinkle in mom and dad's eyes.
God knew us. Now, this intense knowledge of God is inextricably linked with God's predestination of believers. Ephesians 1:4 says, God has chosen us in Him before the creation of the world itself. Before the creation of the world. Before time even existed.
Romans 8:29 says that He has also appointed us to become like Jesus. Have a listen. For whom God foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His son. If you think your life is your own, going into this year, think again. You are on earth for God's purpose.
You are on earth for God's purpose, not your own. It's a purpose that important that it was marked out before the creation of the world. Before the creation of the world. Before the dawn of time even. What was Jeremiah's response to this immense revelation and this call on his life that you are not your own, that you belong to Me, and I'm going to use you for My purpose.
What was Jeremiah's response? Heck no, he says. I'm not doing that. Sovereign Lord, I don't know how to speak. I'm only a child.
It seems Jeremiah was staggered by the responsibility of God's appointment. God says, you will uproot kingdoms. You will overthrow them. You will build them. By your word, things will come into being that has never been in being, has never existed.
Now, obviously, these were massive words and Jeremiah took it very seriously. But Jeremiah was dealing with the one who knew him better than he knew himself. Jeremiah was saying that he was not sure that he could do the job, but he doesn't know the God that he is objecting to. He doesn't know the power of the God who he's speaking with. God knew Jeremiah.
God formed Jeremiah. He knew what Jeremiah could do. He knew it from before Jeremiah had been born. Likewise, I'm sure that sometimes we can feel the same way. When facing terrible times, we wonder if we'll make it.
Going into a new year with new challenges and the fear of the unknown. The question is, can we maintain our faith? Can we keep persevering? Can we keep holding on? Will we be able to get back up if we fall?
Can we possibly succeed when all seems to be going against us? Whatever God is calling you to do this year, know this, that despite your fears and your objections, God won't call us if He doesn't have a purpose for us. God won't call us if He hasn't already prepared us for it. He won't call us if He doesn't know for certain that we can do it. It won't be comfortable.
It might be difficult. In fact, God, in most of these accounts of these heroes of the faith, they didn't have comfortable lives. It might be difficult. God doesn't promise comfort or safety, but He does promise over and over and over again that He is with us. That He will not leave us.
That He will remain true and faithful to us. And that He has called us to do a particular job that only we can do. That is His promise. Verse 7, Jeremiah chapter 1 says, the Lord said to me, do not say I am only a child. You must go to everyone I send you to say whatever I command you.
Jeremiah says, I'm only a youth. I'm only a young boy. He was probably Mare's age. 14 up to 19. Something like that.
That's young. That's very young. Jeremiah argues that he's only a youth. Now, that's true. That may well have been the case, but who is God?
That is the question. God is eternal. He's not young. Jeremiah is weak. God is powerful.
To put it simply, Jeremiah's duty wasn't to start preaching there and then. It wasn't to be the most holy person in all of history. It wasn't to knock on the king's door and demand to speak to him. All Jeremiah's duty was to say yes and to obey. Because the power was God's, not Jeremiah's.
The power is God's, not Jeremiah's. The word to be delivered would not be the words of a young boy. The words are God's word. The actions and the prophecies are God's commands and God's promises to the nation. Now, the Lord commanded that Jeremiah go where he would be sent and to speak that which the Lord would command him to speak.
But it's the same for us as Jesus' disciples today. We must never set aside God's mission for us. We must never think that we don't have a mission, that the only person up here in this church who has a mission is KJ. That's not true. That is not true.
Every single one of us has a calling and a purpose. To argue that we lack the ability to live as God commanded is to express doubt in our creator's wisdom. Let me say that again. To argue that we lack the ability to live as God has commanded us, to live as God has called us to live, is to express doubt in our creator's wisdom. God knows what He's doing.
We need to be humble enough to believe that and to obey it. God goes on and says, do not be afraid of them for I am with you and will rescue you. Our sinful world has never welcomed those who teach the truth of God, who live the truth of God, who live different lives. Those lives have always been different. Even in the world of Christendom, real Christians' lives look different.
Jesus said to His disciples, you will be hated by all on account of My name, but it is the one who endures to the end who will be saved. Later, as Jesus spoke with His apostles shortly before His arrest, He foretold how they would soon be scattered into the night to leave Jesus alone with His captors. He said, these things I've spoken to you that in Me you may have peace. In the world, you will have troubles, but take courage, I have overcome the world. You will have troubles, He warns in one breath, but I have overcome the world.
Be encouraged. Do not be afraid. I know you, says God. I know you. I know you.
I will rescue you. I will be with you. Take courage. Don't be afraid. So many times, that message comes through the Bible.
So many times, don't be afraid. I am with you. I know what you are made of, God says. You have fibre. You have resilience.
You have strength. You can overcome. I know you. So go. Go.
Do what I tell you to do. Be the change in your workplace. Speak out when people insult God or show their absolute lack of knowledge for the gospel. Be that person of integrity in your business world, perhaps the only one that doesn't bend the rules or manipulate the numbers. Refuse to be dragged into petty high school dramas at school because you have a calling that is different.
You have a calling that is different. Don't be dragged into that Facebook world of bullying. Don't be dragged into thinking the same way testosterone hormone driven boys think or act. What gives us the strength? What gives us the strength to endure and to be courageous, to be heroes with higher callings.
Simply put, the knowledge that God knows us. The knowledge that God knows us. That is the difference. You see, my trip in Pakistan especially, people knew Allah. People knew God, but they don't believe that Allah knows them.
They know that they must do the things that Muhammad has told them to do. That there is a strict moral code for them, but at the same time they can cheat and they can worm out of things and they can lie because God doesn't really know them. God doesn't really see them. But God knows us. He knows us.
He knows, for example, how much hair you have on your head. Luke 12:7. He knows your words before you speak them, the Bible says, Psalm 139:4. He knows your thoughts before you think them, Psalm 139:2. He knows your prayers before you pray them, Matthew 6.
He knows everything you are going to do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Every moment of every day, Psalm 139:16. He hears every silent internal groaning of our soul, Romans 8 says. Do you think God knows us? He knows us, and therefore He knows what we're capable of.
He knows us too. He has no doubt in our ability. He formed you for a purpose. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And that's the problem I think here in Jeremiah.
Jeremiah is young. He still didn't know who he was. I'm just a youth. I'm just a boy. How can I do this?
And God's answer is I know you. More than any other prophet, Jeremiah would go on to suffer as the mouthpiece of God. He had to speak out God's truth. He suffered the people's disgust and disbelief. His fellow priests wanted to kill him.
His fellow priests, his co workers, people he had a chat with around the water cooler. The priest, Pasher Ben Imr, had him beaten and put in prison. He eventually had to leave his homeland and fled to Egypt as a refugee. In the end, he heard that his beloved Jerusalem was destroyed in fact, just as he prophesied it would be. And the temple was torn down.
He begged the people to listen to him, but they didn't. They just didn't want to listen. And all the while, he saw the world of his friends and his family crumble in around them. And you know, he was scared. He was scared.
But God said to him, on that fateful day when he was just a teenage boy, don't be afraid, for I am with you and I know you. No matter what harsh things came in Jeremiah's life, he continued to be the man God wanted him to be. Even when he was in captivity, he kept on preaching. He kept on proclaiming. He wrote a letter, a beautiful letter later in his life to the captives in Babylon saying, God is still with you.
Be encouraged. Remain faithful. In the end, he heard that his beloved Jerusalem had been destroyed, but he kept encouraging others and holding fast to God's good plans for the future of his people. This was a man who wrote those famous words we hear so often. I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you.
This was Jeremiah who wrote this. God had known him before He even formed him in the womb, and God had done well by appointing this young man who protested saying he couldn't speak. We might find it difficult. We might find it difficult to imagine the depths of Jeremiah's story with God, but some of what Jeremiah has experienced or did experience, we might experience or we may have already experienced. What does it mean to be called by God?
What does it mean to be consecrated, set aside, appointed by God for a purpose? We may never hear the voice of God clearly, as clearly as Jeremiah did. But when we look back at our life stories, I'm sure you can identify some of those threads that God has woven throughout the whole story. You can see how God was with you in your immigration to Australia. You can see how God was with you in meeting your partner.
You can see how God was orchestrating that job that got you into a great position. We may never hear God's voice as clear as Jeremiah did, but we may also understand that in our suffering and in our pain, in those relationships that do break, or family member who betrays our trust. God is still in control, and God is equipping you and preparing you for even greater things. God's promise is not that we will have a comfortable life. And sometimes I challenge people that if your life is comfortable, you have to ask yourself, are you doing God's will?
If your life is comfortable, are you doing God's will? God's promise is not for us to be comfortable. God's promise is that He will be with us. That He will provide what we need, because He has made us, He has called us, He has appointed us. It doesn't necessarily mean that we will only live on the sunny side of life.
Babylon, where Jeremiah would later write this letter to all the captives, had beautiful hanging gardens. It was one of the ancient wonders of the world. It was a gorgeous place, but not for Jeremiah's people, not for Israel. For Jeremiah and for the people of God, the gardens, the peace were in the hearts and the minds of these people. It was in the thoughts that Jeremiah shared and the faith that he held tightly to, and in the beautiful poetry of his famous letters, with which he encouraged generations of people to live and carry on.
If it is true that God knows us, that He made us and formed us in the womb, if it is true that God knows us and uses us for His purposes, then it is also true as it was for Jeremiah, that we can stick to God's appointment for us and He will be faithful to us in our calling. If you are unsure of this calling, if you're sitting here this morning and you're not sure exactly what God has called you to, please let me share with you some advice that I received by a very wise man. Your calling starts where you find yourself today. Your calling starts where you find yourself today. If you are a mom raising a family and organising a household, your calling starts in that environment.
If you find yourself in an office or a work site, your calling starts in that environment. We can sometimes think that a calling is only something awe inspiring or terrifying, like Isaiah or Jeremiah's calling. But the truth is the calling has been on our life since the dawn of time. It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed.
If God needs to do something awe inspiring, He will. He will. Otherwise, you remain obedient with what you have and what you've been guided to up until now. You do what your hand finds to do. The I know you, God, is in control of our lives.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I know exactly what I need to do with you. I need you to be obedient to Me. Take this as God's personal approach to you today. Hold fast to it and discover who you are in God's eyes and who you are meant to be.
May 2014 be an amazing year for you. May 2014 be an amazing year for us as we take up this calling that God has placed. Be praying, be searching, be asking God to reveal this, to make it clear to us. But in the meantime, we are obedient with what we have been given at this point. Let's pray.
Call us God as You have called Jeremiah. Know us God better than we know ourselves. Consecrate us, appoint us, and use us. And if we try to get away without fulfilling the task You give us, forgive us and encourage us. Put out Your hand and touch us so that we may touch others.
Fill us with courage and wisdom to say and do what You want us to do. In Jesus' name, amen.