Micah McCormick: Turn to the book of Jeremiah.
Micah McCormick: The book of Jeremiah is the book we'll be looking at tonight as we carry on this overview series of all the books of the Bible.
Micah McCormick: We're in Jeremiah tonight, so you can turn to Jeremiah, chapter 1.
Micah McCormick: That's in our Old Testaments, the second of what Pastor Doug had brought out as what are sometimes called the major prophets Isaiah and then Jeremiah.
Micah McCormick: I want to read Jeremiah 1, verses 4 and 5, to start out.
Micah McCormick: The word of the Lord came to me.
Micah McCormick: I chose you before I formed you in the womb.
Micah McCormick: I set you apart before you were born.
Micah McCormick: I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Micah McCormick: Let me just briefly pray again, lord.
Micah McCormick: We're seeking you tonight that you would speak through this prophetic word, that we have this word as a more sure and certain thing than even the Mount of Transfiguration, and we do well to pay attention to it.
Micah McCormick: So pray that you would give me attention to it in my heart.
Micah McCormick: Give all of us attention to it tonight, in Jesus name, amen.
Micah McCormick: God says he's appointed Jeremiah to be a prophet to the nations, and particularly to Israel.
Micah McCormick: What's his message?
Micah McCormick: The book of Jeremiah reminds me of one of those sleazy daytime TV shows.
Micah McCormick: Those sleazy daytime TV shows.
Micah McCormick: Now why do I say that?
Micah McCormick: Don't run me out on the street.
Micah McCormick: You can say a few things after 10 years that you wouldn't say the first time you were preaching.
Micah McCormick: God's inspired his word.
Micah McCormick: It's good and it's pure.
Micah McCormick: But here's why I say that A lot of those daytime TV shows it seems like it's always about who is suing who or, in other courtroom dramas, who is sleeping with who.
Micah McCormick: Those are always there In the book of Jeremiah.
Micah McCormick: Two of the controlling themes and images of the book is the image of a lawsuit and the image of adultery.
Micah McCormick: Now there are some key differences In those daytime shows.
Micah McCormick: Part of the probably sinful curiosity is you don't know who's telling the truth.
Micah McCormick: This person's doing that person and you said you were going to fix the car, but you didn't.
Micah McCormick: Who's telling the truth when it comes to God's word and his lawsuits?
Micah McCormick: We know that he's always speaking the truth.
Micah McCormick: He's always in the right.
Micah McCormick: Another difference is some of those talk shows, things like that.
Micah McCormick: They're really just trying to entertain you, and that's a sad thing.
Micah McCormick: When they bring someone out on stage that was secretly having an affair, they're trying to kind of entertain you.
Micah McCormick: What a sad way to do that.
Micah McCormick: The Lord, when he uses this metaphor repeatedly in the book of Jeremiah of adultery, he's not Not seeking to entertain but to shock and move us to repent and turn to him.
Micah McCormick: So in the book of Jeremiah, god is bringing a covenant case against his adulterous people.
Micah McCormick: That's what we're going to see tonight.
Micah McCormick: God is bringing a covenant case against his adulterous people.
Micah McCormick: Let's look at chapter two, and again we'll be looking at different passages in this book.
Micah McCormick: Chapter two, verse number nine and the translation I have tonight, same as your pew Bible there, and the translation I have tonight, same as your pew Bible there, says therefore, I will bring a case against you.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: I will bring a case against your children's children.
Micah McCormick: The ESV says I will contend with you.
Micah McCormick: The NIV says I'll bring charges against you.
Micah McCormick: We're in this realm of a legal metaphor.
Micah McCormick: Look down at verse number 29 of chapter 2.
Micah McCormick: Just getting some samples here, some soundings Verse 29, why do you bring a case against me?
Micah McCormick: And he goes on.
Micah McCormick: There's also the language of the Lord standing as a judge.
Micah McCormick: Look at chapter 2, verse 35.
Micah McCormick: You claim I am innocent.
Micah McCormick: His anger is sure to turn away from me, but I will certainly judge you because you have said I have not sinned, said I have not sinned.
Micah McCormick: And then you don't have to turn there, but listen to chapter 25, verse 31.
Micah McCormick: The tumult reaches to the ends of the earth because the Lord brings a case against the nations.
Micah McCormick: He enters into judgment with all humanity.
Micah McCormick: As for the wicked, he gives them over to the sword.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: As for the wicked, he gives them over to the sword.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: Now, in that verse I just read, it talks about all humanity.
Micah McCormick: So is it his people or all humanity?
Micah McCormick: Well, it's primarily his people, but he's going to indict all the nations too.
Micah McCormick: So we're not going to span beyond our theme just right now.
Micah McCormick: We are going to come back to that at a later point.
Micah McCormick: So we've got this contending language bringing a case against them language.
Micah McCormick: We've got God as judge coming in here.
Micah McCormick: And why does God bring this case against them?
Micah McCormick: Well, you're still in chapter two.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse 29.
Micah McCormick: All of you have rebelled against me.
Micah McCormick: There's the general description, but let's get a little more specific.
Micah McCormick: Turn over to chapter 11.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 11, beginning with the first verse.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 11, beginning with the first verse this is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Listen to the words of this covenant and tell them to the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.
Micah McCormick: Tell them.
Micah McCormick: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.
Micah McCormick: Let a curse be on the man who does not obey the words of this covenant which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.
Micah McCormick: I declared obey me and do everything that I command you, and you will be my people and I will be your God.
Micah McCormick: In order to establish the oath I swore to your ancestors to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is today.
Micah McCormick: I answered amen, lord.
Micah McCormick: As it is today.
Micah McCormick: I answered Amen, lord.
Micah McCormick: The Lord said to me proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.
Micah McCormick: Obey the words of this covenant and carry them out, for I strongly warned your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt until today, warning them time and time again obey me.
Micah McCormick: Yet they would not obey or pay attention.
Micah McCormick: So he's bringing a case against them because they've rebelled.
Micah McCormick: And now he specifies that rebellion is rebellion against the covenant he had with them.
Micah McCormick: That's why I said he's bringing a covenant case against Israel.
Micah McCormick: So hundreds of years before God came and spoke, through the prophet Jeremiah, he brings the people out of Egypt and, if you remember, he's talking about it right here.
Micah McCormick: Through Jeremiah, looking back on what's happened At the base of Mount Sinai, he enters into a covenant with the entire nation.
Micah McCormick: He gives them 10 commandments there are many other laws that come along with that and he says here's what I want you to do Obey me in these ways, I'm going to bring you into the promised land.
Micah McCormick: And they say, yes, all that Lord has spoken, we will do.
Micah McCormick: There's sprinkled blood and they have this covenant.
Micah McCormick: But as Jeremiah speaks and the Lord through him reminds the people over and over again, throughout the centuries they failed to obey and a part of that old covenant was bringing you into the land, keep obeying me.
Micah McCormick: There's going to be all these blessings.
Micah McCormick: If you disobey, there's going to be all of these curses.
Micah McCormick: And here these curses are starting to come into effect as Jeremiah speaks of Babylon, who's going to come and take them into exile.
Micah McCormick: So he's bringing a covenant case against the people.
Micah McCormick: And I mentioned that other significant image, the image of adultery, as really almost a controlling metaphor in this book for the nature of their sin.
Micah McCormick: Let's sample a few passages in relation to that.
Micah McCormick: Let's go to chapter 3.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah 3.
Micah McCormick: I want you to see it yourself.
Micah McCormick: Don't just trust me, but make sure we're looking at scripture together.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah 3, verse 1.
Micah McCormick: If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her?
Micah McCormick: Wouldn't such a land become totally defiled?
Micah McCormick: But you, you have prostituted yourself with many partners.
Micah McCormick: Can you return to me?
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 9,.
Micah McCormick: Turn over to chapter nine, verses one and two.
Micah McCormick: If my head were a flowing spring, my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night over the slain of my dear people.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah is sometimes called the weeping prophet for a passage like this, verse 2.
Micah McCormick: A solemn assembly of treacherous people Jeremiah 23.10.
Micah McCormick: Turn over to Jeremiah, chapter 23.
Micah McCormick: For the land is full of adulterers.
Micah McCormick: The land mourns because of the curse.
Micah McCormick: The grazing lands and the wilderness have dried up.
Micah McCormick: Their way of life has become evil and their power is not rightly used.
Micah McCormick: Adultery, adultery, adultery, prostitution, prostitution, prostitution.
Micah McCormick: You say, well, were they committing a lot of physical adultery?
Micah McCormick: Yes, that's part of what's going on.
Micah McCormick: You can listen to this passage Jeremiah 29, verse 23.
Micah McCormick: They've committed an outrage in Israel by committing adultery with their neighbor's wives.
Micah McCormick: So there was physical adultery going on.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah will also speak of the high places.
Micah McCormick: In the ancient world, often various cultures had shrines to their gods and they would put them up in mountainous regions, part of their kind of worldview, and often at these mountainous shrines there would be temple prostitutes of various sorts.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah mentions the people engaging in worship at the high places, like the surrounding nations.
Micah McCormick: There was also likely sexual immorality happening at those places.
Micah McCormick: So, yes, there is physical immorality going on here.
Micah McCormick: But then why did I say that there's this controlling image of adultery?
Micah McCormick: It's like actual adultery adultery.
Micah McCormick: Well, I say that because through this prophet, jeremiah, the Lord categorizes all their sin as adultery.
Micah McCormick: It's not merely the people that commit the physical act.
Micah McCormick: It includes that.
Micah McCormick: But it's broader than that.
Micah McCormick: Many of the prophets will use this image.
Micah McCormick: When we come to Ezekiel, you'll probably hear more of this.
Micah McCormick: There's even more graphic language in the book of Ezekiel than there is here in Jeremiah about the horror of that sin.
Micah McCormick: I'll give you an example, and you can again listen to this In chapter 2, verse 32, god says a bride doesn't forget her wedding sash, but his people have forgotten him.
Micah McCormick: There's the wayward wife imagery, but then in verse 34 of chapter 2, jeremiah goes on to say your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor.
Micah McCormick: What does trampling on poor people and taking advantage of them have to do with adultery?
Micah McCormick: Because it's a sin.
Micah McCormick: It's a sin against God's covenant and God is viewing adultery, all of these sins against his covenant, as a kind of adultery.
Micah McCormick: You can see in chapter 7, jeremiah cataloging many of these sins.
Micah McCormick: Maybe write that down and look at it later.
Micah McCormick: They worship false gods, they steal, they murder, they swear falsely, they receive false prophets, they ignore God, they trust in mere rituals and it's all prostitution, it's all adultery.
Micah McCormick: Why?
Micah McCormick: It's because it comes.
Micah McCormick: Those sins come in the context of a covenant violation.
Micah McCormick: They're not just doing wrong things in the abstract, they're doing wrong things against the Lord, who bought them and loved him.
Micah McCormick: He pictures that old covenant at Sinai as though he's entering into a kind of marriage with the people so that when they sin against the law they're sitting against him, their husband it's a very personal thing their husband.
Micah McCormick: It's a very personal thing If someone's on trial for stealing a motorcycle and have the trial and the judge bangs the gavel and says you're guilty.
Micah McCormick: Seven years in prison, you filthy prostitute, kind of like whoa.
Micah McCormick: Where did that come from?
Micah McCormick: I stole the motorcycle.
Micah McCormick: Why do you got to like launch at me like that?
Micah McCormick: But if you knew, this person stole the motorcycle in order to go to a seedy part of town and get drugs and let other people abuse them, all while their spouse was waiting at home with the wonderful meal they cooked.
Micah McCormick: That starts to reveal the intensifying personal nature of it.
Micah McCormick: That's what this kind of sin is against the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And it's even more twisted when you have a perfect spouse.
Micah McCormick: None of us have perfect spouses, but the Lord is a perfect spouse.
Micah McCormick: You couldn't ask for anyone better than the Lord, and yet the people still sin against him.
Micah McCormick: So in chapter 23, 14, and go ahead and turn to chapter two, you might still be in chapter two.
Micah McCormick: We've gone to a bunch of places.
Micah McCormick: Turn back to chapter two.
Micah McCormick: But in chapter 23, verse 14, god says that Jerusalem's residents are like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Micah McCormick: In chapter three, verse 9, he says it's as if they're committing adultery with stones and trees, like it's so ugly.
Micah McCormick: It's not even a satisfying thing, and if you look at chapter 2, I've got to get there myself, sorry.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse number five.
Micah McCormick: This is what the Lord says.
Micah McCormick: What fault did your ancestors find in me that they went so far for me, followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves?
Micah McCormick: Look down at verse 11.
Micah McCormick: We'll read verses 11 to 13.
Micah McCormick: Has a nation ever exchanged its gods?
Micah McCormick: But they were not gods.
Micah McCormick: Yet my people have exchanged their glory for useless idols.
Micah McCormick: Be appalled at this, o heavens, be shocked and utterly desolated.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: I like to hike.
Micah McCormick: I like waterfalls on hikes, but you don't always know what you're going to get.
Micah McCormick: Sometimes the rainfall can affect how much waterfall there is and occasionally you'll have people talking up this hike and there's this amazing waterfall and da-da-da-da-da, you do the hike and you get to the waterfall and it's like drip, drip, drip and you're like, well, this was a letdown.
Micah McCormick: This is not what I expected, god says.
Micah McCormick: You got so excited to go after these foreign nations and worship their gods and disobey my covenant.
Micah McCormick: What did you actually get out of it?
Micah McCormick: You didn't get what you were hoping for.
Micah McCormick: Tim Keller has that image where he would say sometimes you know, our sin is like you wake up in the morning and it's Leah.
Micah McCormick: It's not what you expected it would result in.
Micah McCormick: Look at chapter 17, verses 5 to 8.
Micah McCormick: And this is going to start to really reveal the heart of the issue here.
Micah McCormick: And the heart of the issue is the issue of the heart, chapter 17,.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse number five.
Micah McCormick: This is what the Lord says.
Micah McCormick: Cursed is the person who trusts in mankind.
Micah McCormick: He makes human flesh his strength and his heart turns from the Lord.
Micah McCormick: He will be like a juniper in the Arabah he cannot see when good comes, but dwells in the parched places, in the wilderness, in a salt land where no one lives.
Micah McCormick: The person who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence indeed is the Lord, is blessed.
Micah McCormick: He will be like a tree planted by water.
Micah McCormick: Sounds like Psalm 1 there, doesn't it?
Micah McCormick: It sends out its root in its stream.
Micah McCormick: It doesn't fear when heat comes, its foliage remains green.
Micah McCormick: It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.
Micah McCormick: The heart is more deceitful than anything else and incurable who can understand it?
Micah McCormick: And incurable who can understand it?
Micah McCormick: The Lord is heartbroken over his people.
Micah McCormick: And if Chad Driscoll, if you're listening, he's not heartbroken in the exact same way that we are, but he's heartbroken over his people, and you can see, even in some of the language of Jeremiah.
Micah McCormick: Here, if you look at your Bibles, you'll notice that our translators have given a different type setting.
Micah McCormick: Some of it's very paragraphed.
Micah McCormick: In most of your Bibles, no matter what translation you have, it's very paragraphed.
Micah McCormick: And then there are large blocks that are not really paragraphed.
Micah McCormick: They look almost more poetic, and so the translators are trying to kind of help us distinguish narrative blocks from poetic blocks.
Micah McCormick: And there's a lot of poetry in Jeremiah.
Micah McCormick: It's not the kind of poetry that we're used to, kind of sing-songy and with rhymes, but it's a focused and artistic way to express this anxiety and heart burden.
Micah McCormick: So the Lord is heartbroken, he's angry, but he's not flying off a out of control.
Micah McCormick: This is a pointed and fixed grief and Jeremiah shares with the Lord this intense grief.
Micah McCormick: That's put into poetry, just so hard to express all of the emotion.
Micah McCormick: But they're doing it in a very controlled but pointed way and we'll actually see in the book of Lamentations in two weeks I believe we're off next Sunday night In two weeks.
Micah McCormick: Lamentations especially has that poetic thrust to grief.
Micah McCormick: So we'll consider more of that here.
Micah McCormick: But the Lord is yearning over his people and he recognizes, as he knows, all things, he recognizes the issue of their heart.
Micah McCormick: So they're going to go to Babylon and he's going to give them hope we're going to come and help, just a minute here that they're going to be brought out of Babylon.
Micah McCormick: But then if the problem is their deceitful heart, is it?
Micah McCormick: What's difference is the location going to make?
Micah McCormick: They were in Egypt, then they came out, then they were in the promised land.
Micah McCormick: Then they're in Babylon, then they'll be back in the promised land.
Micah McCormick: Well, I, then they were in the promised land, then they're in Babylon, then they'll be back in the promised land.
Micah McCormick: Well, I'd rather be in the promised land than a slave in Egypt.
Micah McCormick: I'd rather be in the promised land and have some freedom than kind of be under the thumb of Babylon.
Micah McCormick: But if it's that deceptive heart that's going to travel with me no matter where I go, and that's what's happening with the people, so they need something more.
Micah McCormick: And towards the last portion of the book, jeremiah indicts not just God's people but other surrounding nations, even Babylon itself.
Micah McCormick: So God will use Babylon to judge Israel.
Micah McCormick: But then Babylon willingly chose to murder and kill and destroy, and God's going to judge them too.
Micah McCormick: So all of us who are here today as people made in God's image.
Micah McCormick: We might not be part of this specific covenant in its historic setting that God made with the group of people, the Israelites, but if we're made in his image, there's a sense in which we belong to God and we owe him obedience and loyalty.
Micah McCormick: And all the nations are facing judgment.
Micah McCormick: We're facing judgment.
Micah McCormick: It's not just Israel that has this deceitful and wicked heart.
Micah McCormick: All of us have this deceitful and wicked heart.
Micah McCormick: So God brings a covenant case against his adulterous people, and they're guilty.
Micah McCormick: He speaks of the certificate of divorce that he wrote for Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and threatens it for Judah and Jerusalem, the Southern Kingdom.
Micah McCormick: Because they didn't learn they acted just the same way.
Micah McCormick: But that's not the end of this inspired courtroom drama.
Micah McCormick: The final word is not a word purely of judgment.
Micah McCormick: There's a word of hope.
Micah McCormick: So turn to chapter 31.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 31, even after all of this covenant indictment and graphic language of the people's sin, god in his marvelous mercy, gives them hope.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 31,.
Micah McCormick: I'll pick up the reading in verse number 31.
Micah McCormick: Look, the days are coming.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
Micah McCormick: I'm going to pause there.
Micah McCormick: It's so fitting that these words would be in Jeremiah, because Jeremiah has outlined God's covenant case against the people.
Micah McCormick: They broke the terms of the old covenant.
Micah McCormick: They have this deceitful heart.
Micah McCormick: They kept breaking the old covenant.
Micah McCormick: The curses are rightly being carried out.
Micah McCormick: What's the solution?
Micah McCormick: Well, jeremiah says good news there's a new covenant coming.
Micah McCormick: This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
Micah McCormick: My covenant they broke, even though I am their master.
Micah McCormick: The Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: So this is not like the judge saying okay, you stole the motorcycle, seven years in prison and then, once you do the seven years, we'll give you another chance.
Micah McCormick: See if you can go without selling a motorcycle.
Micah McCormick: God is not just telling the people okay, you're going to take him to Babylon and then you're going to get kind of a fresh start when you come back into the land and let's see if you can carry out the old covenant this next time.
Micah McCormick: This is something new.
Micah McCormick: It is in some senses unlike that old covenant Verse 33,.
Micah McCormick: Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts.
Micah McCormick: What is the whole problem here?
Micah McCormick: The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.
Micah McCormick: Is the whole problem here?
Micah McCormick: The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.
Micah McCormick: Moses had even said you've actually got to circumcise your heart.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah brings that up too, and the Lord says I'm going to do it, I'm going to give you the new heart you need.
Micah McCormick: He knows they can't circumcise their own heart.
Micah McCormick: He knows they can't fulfill this old covenant, but he says I'm going to come and make it happen.
Micah McCormick: I will be their God and they will be my people.
Micah McCormick: Verse 34,.
Micah McCormick: No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother saying know the Lord, for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration, for I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.
Micah McCormick: If you've been coming here at all on Sunday mornings, we're going through the gospel of Matthew and we've come to the crucifixion, the burial of Jesus Christ, which we heard about this morning.
Micah McCormick: Jesus himself inaugurates this is the new covenant in my blood.
Micah McCormick: Jesus is fulfilling God's plan prophesied through Jeremiah.
Micah McCormick: Jesus comes and completes all that Israel, and all that we failed to do so.
Micah McCormick: This new covenant is not God saying boy, that old covenant, I was a little harsh with that, let's wind it back and lower the bar a bit.
Micah McCormick: I'm a nice guy, let's wind it back and lower the bar a bit, I'm a nice guy.
Micah McCormick: It's not that he is saying the old covenant was wrong and he's just going to kind of erase it.
Micah McCormick: It's righteous and it will be fulfilled.
Micah McCormick: It's just not going to be Israel, the nations that are the fulfillers of it, that are the fulfillers of it.
Micah McCormick: They're rebellious children, but his son always had a listening ear.
Micah McCormick: His son was never rebellious.
Micah McCormick: His son perfectly measures all of the terms of that covenant.
Micah McCormick: So when you come to the book of Hebrews, in chapter eight, the writer of Hebrews speaks about that new covenant and says the new covenant is for all who come to Christ, jew or Gentile in Christ, that true fulfillment of all that Israel was intended to be.
Micah McCormick: We participate in the new covenant not by our own works.
Micah McCormick: We participate in the new covenant not by our own works but by receiving and embracing the work of Christ.
Micah McCormick: I'm going to take you last passage for tonight here in Jeremiah.
Micah McCormick: Go over to chapter 23 of Jeremiah.
Micah McCormick: The prophets move through kind of back and forths of judgment and hope for mercy and different kinds of judgment, and then mercy whispered and sprinkled it in different ways at different sections.
Micah McCormick: So he in chapter 31, jeremiah, brings out this hope of the new covenant.
Micah McCormick: But he's already before that talked about how something like that could be possible, because chapter 31 doesn't give us all of the details of how the new covenant is affected and how the Lord fulfills it, but chapter 23,.
Micah McCormick: We have a little bit more of that.
Micah McCormick: Verse one woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pastor.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: Therefore, this is what the Lord says, the God of Israel says about the shepherds who tend my people.
Micah McCormick: You've scattered my flock, you've banished them.
Micah McCormick: I'm about to attend to you because of your evil acts.
Micah McCormick: Then look at verse five.
Micah McCormick: Look, the days are coming this is the Lord's declaration when I will raise up a righteous branch for David.
Micah McCormick: David is dead when Jeremiah is prophesying.
Micah McCormick: But King David, people had hope in him, but he didn't bring ultimate salvation.
Micah McCormick: His son, his branch sometimes lineages and even nations are described as trees or branches or vines.
Micah McCormick: His son didn't bring that.
Micah McCormick: But God says there's a branch coming and it's going to be a righteous branch, unlike all the unrighteous people.
Micah McCormick: He will reign wisely as king and administer justice and righteousness in the land.
Micah McCormick: And then, in case you were uncertain, verse number six in his days, judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely.
Micah McCormick: This is the name he will be called, the Lord Yahweh.
Micah McCormick: All caps there.
Micah McCormick: The Lord is our righteousness.
Micah McCormick: So Jeremiah brings together the coming branch of David with the Lord himself.
Micah McCormick: It's not we are the righteousness or David's son.
Micah McCormick: Merely from a human vantage point is our righteousness.
Micah McCormick: It is David's son, it is true human, but it's God himself, the Lord, who gives the gift of righteousness, and he does this.
Micah McCormick: He says even earlier in Jeremiah he's going to act for his namesake.
Micah McCormick: That's our final lasting hope.
Micah McCormick: If it's just the covenant case against us, we'd have to say yes, I'm an adulterous person, no matter what the specific sin is, that we struggle with the nature of who we are to be unfaithful to the Lord.
Micah McCormick: That's me.
Micah McCormick: But the case has been closed and our verdict has been secured as not guilty because of the Lord, our righteousness, jesus, the righteous branch.
Micah McCormick: So Jeremiah is a book with a lot of weeping, but ultimately hope in God's Messiah.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray, lord, give us a staggering horror at the reality of our sin, that we wouldn't talk about it in meager terms and light terms and just mere terms of wrong choices or mistakes, but to see how foolish we are when we turn from a fountain of living waters to try to dig out pitiful, muddy, broken cisterns that don't hold water.
Micah McCormick: And yet, for your own namesake, you've acted, you've called us to yourself, you continue to be at work in us, and we want more and more this experience of forgiveness and the credit of righteousness.
Micah McCormick: We do want to transform our lives, that your law would be written on our hearts more and more.
Micah McCormick: So do that, do that in a way that binds us to you in love.
Micah McCormick: That we'd act not out of mere fear or duty, but out of love for our master, love for you, our husband Jesus Christ, our bridegroom, who is soon coming again.
Micah McCormick: We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.