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Haggai 2 Sermon – The Glory of the second temple

This was my second sermon from Haggai.  Including the now famous/infamous flour experiment.  I was talking to someone from St Georges today, I started telling them about my little illustration but apparently they had already heard all about it from a third-party.  Sermon Win.

Anyway click the picture below to watch the sermon at Megavideo

Here are the rough notes I made for the sermon, in case it’s easier for you to read than to listen.  What I said and what I planned to say may not necessarily be the same thing.

Passage

Retell the story

they’ve built this new temple but all the old men are standing around going, ah,  buts not like it was in my day.

but of course the old temple was Solomon’s temple.   Built at the peak of Israels socio political power.  It’s amazing that they’ve even managed to build this new temple.  In Solomons day Israel was rich,  he could fill the temple with gold,  he could employ the greatest artists,  Solomon was able to use huge numbers of slaves for the workforce,  he raised taxes to fund the project.  This new temple is built when Israel is relatively weak and vulnerable.  They’ve only a little while ago arrived back from Exile.  Theyre a much smaller country having lost most of the tribes of Israel.  They just don’t have the same wealth to fill the temple with gold and jewels.  They cant employ great artists.  It’s all has a bit of a community feel to it. So of course they build it and those who are old enough to remember the old days see it.  And they’re hearts break a little thinking of what used to be.

they’re in this funny place emotionally.  they’ve had a little bit of hope,  a bit of excitement but now reality is starting to set in.  They start to think that their hope was misplaced.  And the work slows down.  It’s at this point that it would be really easy to stop because hope’s a dangerous thing like that. To have hope rise and then to fail is far more painful than to have never hoped.  Maybe it would be better to stop now.

And maybe there’s even a bit of fear that God will look at this new house and refuse to move in. God could never love this house the way he loved the old house.

And it’s at this point that God speaks to them and says don’t fear i am with you.

I think faith is like any physical abilities.  It has a natural limit, but that doesn’t stop us from using as much of it as we can, and it can be exercised,

fear is also like this it can be exercised we have natural limits on our fear both in terms of how afraid we can be and how unafraid we can be.  And just like faith we have a choice about how much we walk in it and how much we exercise it.  The more we exercise fear the stronger it becomes the more we exercise bravery the weaker our fears become.

our old temple builders had a choice whether to exercise their fear or their faith.

there was a similar situation for the early church.

Now the church and the temple are similar in many ways. The temple is a building that had to be built up for the worship of god,  the church is the people of god,  built up for gods worship.  Something that was once made of stone,  is now flesh.

When jesus had ascended,  when he had gone back into heaven, the early church had a choice.  They could go out and tell people about jesus,  or they could stay hidden away and protect themselves.  They could choose faith or they could choose fear.  Do you know what they chose.  They chose to hide.  You see they had reached the limit of their faith.

We could look at them the same way those old men looked and the temple and think.  Oh it’s not as good as I thought it was going to be.

just like we could look at the church today and think,  it doesn’t look like much

But that’s not the end of the story.

back to the temple.

God makes a promise, that whatever is lacking, he will provide.  He promises that the glory of the second temple will be greater than the first.  You see the true glory of the temple is not in the building, or the gold, but in the presence of God.

ok back to the early church.

you see God had a fairly simple recipe for making the church.

He took a group of disciples

light of the world

But what really transformed it was the breath of God

http://www.youtube.com/v/7oczRAvxgS8?fs=1&hl=en_US

This was the moment a group of nervous people became a revolution

tell the story of the early church

Peter’s first sermon

the churches growth, sharing their possessions.   A new type of community.

Someone asked me recently what characterised the early church, what did it do that made it such a powerful movement.  I thought about it for a moment and thought, I don’t really think that’s the right question.  and I think the answer is these two things, the time they spent being discipled by Jesus and being filled at pentecost.  So when the church shares its possessions, is that a consequence of Jesus’ teaching about money, or is that how the Spirit of God changed their hearts.  When people stand up to speak and hundreds or even thousands choose to put their faith in Jesus, is that because they’ve seen Jesus teaching the message first hand or is it because what they say is empowered by the Spirit of God.  When they’re seeing miracles left right and centre is that because Jesus spent three years training them in faith or was it because the Holy Spirit was empowering them.  I think the answer is always both.

Just like the temple had to be built up in a practical sense, the disciples had to be built in knowledge, in wisdom and in character, and so we build up the church, or our little area of it, to be the best it can be.  But when we reach the limit of what’s humanly possible, We leave space for God to fill it up.  To take what we have made and turn it into something Glorious.

close eyes

I want you to think of the future story of your life.

I want you to imagine two stories, the first, what if you did things badly, what could go wrong.

Now tell another story, what could really go right, what is the best story of your life that you could imagine.  You know, the one where you change the world.  The one where you’re part of a revolution.

Now, what would you need to change to live in the second story.

• Would you need more accountability.
• Would you need to pray more.
• What about changing your job.
• What about taking a few more chances.

 

Haggai 1 – Rebuilding the temple

This is my sermon from Haggai 1 – About rebuilding the temple, but also about the place of church in our community.

<—-Click here (stupid wordpress won’t let me ebed      megavideo)

 

 

And these were my notes/script.  They may be some similarities between the two

Where are we

the last time i was allowed up here was during or series on Jeremiah.  And Jeremiah’s a great book, but there was one thing that I found dissatisfying about it.   Jeremiah starts in Judah, with God warning them that they need to repent, that disaster is just over the horizon.  It’s a great model of how to hold firm when the world around you is entirely corrupt.  When everything’s going down the pan.  And then we have the exile, and we have Jeremiah’s promise of a future return, and even a look forward to the heavenly city.  and that’s a great model for the persecuted church.  for when the church finds itself under a government that is hostile to God, and hostile to God’s values.  But the reality is that we are not in either of those places, at least not yet.  When we talk about corruption in our country we’re probably talking about politicians claiming too much expenses to fix their drive.  Or  we can imagine ourselves to be a persecuted minority and complain that the new atheists keep implying that we’re irrational.  But it’s all kind of small scale.  I spoke to someone recently who had come to England because the corruption in their own country had reached the point where, unless you know the right person, or can afford a bribe, it is very hard to get into university, and Richard Dawkins might be annoying sometimes but it’s not like being a Christian in China under a communist country, and certainly nothing like Christians used to suffer under the old communist regime, or what the confessing church risked under nazi rule, or what believers across the world risk under islamic law.   I tend to view being a follower of Jesus as being a revolutionary, If Jesus is the way, then following him, and teaching others to do the same, is the best way of peacefully transforming society.  So I’m a revolutionary, I’m just not sure what i’m revolting against.  and that’s why i like Haggai.  We’ve had the exile, the great fall from grace for Judah, we’ve had the time spent in Babylon paying for their mistakes, the time of holding on and waiting for the world to change, we’ve had the return from Israel and now things are kind of OK.  Not great, just OK.

To me it’s a very familiar feeling.

⁵ Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. ⁶ You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

Its’ s a lot better than where they were.  There’s nothing seriously and obviously wrong in society, there’s no imediate threats.  People are probably still feeling pretty repentant after the exile.  But there’s something missing.  Nothings really satisfying, there’s never enough of anything to entirely fulfill  their needs, nothing quite scratches their itch.  They expected more than this.

Are we taking care of God’s house, God’s people

God points out the problem, they haven’t rebuilt the temple.

picture of heaven

the temple was an attempt to represent a heavenly reality in material form.    Not of heaven as a place you can go to at the end of life, but as a present reality.  a reality that is not somewhere else, but somehow else.  It’s a picture of the throne room of God.  The temples existence was a recognition of the transcendent.

When I was a teenager the most popular show on TV was like the x-files, today it is csi.

Human beings are not just bone and meat, living is more than breathing, are words are more than air, are thoughts are not just the random

when people used to say, i don’t believe in what i can’t see, we would say, ‘you can’t see the wind, you can see the effects of the wind, but you can’t see the wind.’  a more up to date scientific equivalent might be ‘you can’t see dark matter, but you can see the effects of dark matter using gravitational lensing, which proves that the mass of galaxies far exceeds the amount of visible matter within the universe’.

music, art, poetry, stories have all been traditionally a way of trying to connect with this transcendant element.  It’s like we have this vague memory of something like a long forgotten dream.  It’s like a sound or a taste, we can’t quite put our finger on it but if we found it we’d recognise it.

place of worship

if your understanding of yourself is purely physical, if you perceive the world around you only as material, then the things that give your life meaning and value are also understood materially.

the important thing is to keep the important thing the important thing.

It’s in the place of worship that we put God back at the centre of our lives.  He is way above and beyond us, above and boyond anything we own, anything we know.  before the exile the northern kingdom had problems because it replaced the temple with a place of idolatry.  Once the place of worship was taken away, something had to fill it’s gap.  and idol is defined as a material effigy that is worshiped, the definition of worship is to love unquestioningly, to serve, to show devotion to.

We live in a world that is great at worship, that is full of material things that recieve our service, our unquestioning love and devotion.

how many people display their love and loyalty to their macs

what would some people give to own an Aston Martin DB9

How many people spend their whole lives working for a supermarket

How many people are totally devoted to manchester united

how many people have an unquestioning loyalty to IKEA

We are in a world that is great at worshiping but no idea what to worship.  it’s in the place of worship that we put these things in their place.  It’s in worshiping God that we state that our car, our house, our team, our job, do not own us, are not the most important things in our lives.  And it’s in meeting God in worship that we can start to make our whole lives an act of worship.

place of sacrifice

It is more blessed to give than to receive

We have a stronger emotional reaction to buying gifts for others than for ourselves.

sacrificial giving is not the same as charity.

2 Corinthians 9:1-15

God loves a hilarious giver.

We’re meant to be invested in our giving.

sacrifice and the good samaritan

We sometimes treat loving our neighbour as a childish thing.

The Samaritan met a stranger but they became neighbours

The encounter cost the Samaritan, but it was a cost he was willing to pay because he was invested in the man, even though they had only just met

the Israelites were invested in rebuilding the temple

Place of community

The Jews did not worship alone

place of forgiveness

forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a permanent attitude

we are in a world of conditional forgiveness at best.

but it is something that we are in constant need of.

The church – people of God needs to be a place of forgiveness but it’s easy to have limits to our forgiveness.

presence of God

Most of all, the temple is the place of the presence of God, what’s called the Shakina glory.

The desire of God to be back in relationship, we were made to walk with God

Without the presence of God the temple of God could only ever be a building, impressive but still one among many.  With the presence of God it becomes something glorious.

The same is true of the church – the people of God.

take our worship for example.

we can take the time to practice, we can be organised, we can make sure there is a full sound and good harmonics.  The levels can be ballanced just right.  But what takes it to another level is something else.

I can plan my sermon, I can deliver it clearly, I can speak great truths to you.  But what I really pray for is that God says something.  Cause that’s far more interesting and cuts far deeper than anything I’ve got to say.

 

Jeremiah 31 and the robot apocalypse

Below is my sermon for 21/8/10, feel free to read, meditate on and steal my ideas.

here is the powerpoint

Most people will have based this sermon around the idea of the new covenant.  Good protestant theology.  But for some reason the first idea that came into my head was the zombie apocalypse.  I intended to use the ideas of modern apocalyptic films as a humorous aside, a trivial illustration, but somehow it became the linchpin to my understanding of the chapter.

i also recommend you read up on the Leipzig protests in East Germany.  I read about them in ‘Finding God in unexpected places’ by (that guy who wrote what’s so amazing about grace but who’s name i can’t remember right now).  Read about Leipzig here

Jeremiah 31 31-41

reminder of how we got here

hi,

ok the story so far.  I’ll try and do this quickly.

God chooses a man Abraham and tells him he will be a great nation and shows him a land, and promises it to Abraham’s descendants.

he has some children, and grandchildren and great grandchildren who also recieve the promises.

We get to Joseph who moves to Egypt

Egypt turns these Hebrews into slaves so God sends Moses who leads them into liberation and towards this promised land.  on the way they pass through a desert, and while there God makes a covenant with Israel, this is sometimes seen as a marriage contract.  God promises that if Israel is faithful to him, then he will protect them, provide for them and to give them with a home.

Israel arrives in the promised land and takes it by force.

They are lead by Judges, who’s purpose is to discern the will of God and interpret the law.

Isreal gets tired of this method of leadership and decides they would prefer to be a Kingdom (like their neighbours)  God conscents to this leadership and chooses Saul to lead Israel.  Saul lets God down and is eventually replaced by David.  David is replaced by his son Solomon who builds a temple for God, but in the process puts down some harsh taxes and uses slave labour

Solomons son Rehoboam increases the taxes, some people don’t like this and the Kingdom of Isreal splits into two half lead by Rehoboam from Jerusalem and half by Jeroboam based in Bethel

As the time of the kings continues they are on the whole pretty bad.  Each time things get really bad God sends prophets to remind them of the contract they made in the dessert and bring them back.  Towards the end of this period we have the prophet Jeremiah.  But at this point it seems to be too late.  Israel cannot be brought back this time and God withdraws his protection and allows them to be conquored by the Babylonians and taken into captivity.

And this is the point that we are at now

For a long time for Jeremiah its been like, all he can see is the oncoming storm.

Before a big storm there is this feeling of mugginess. this feeling of pressure.  In the sky all you can see is clouds.  Before a really bad storm it can also be really hot.

It’s like Jeremiah’s been able to see storm clouds all his life.  He’s kept warning people, the storm is coming, the storm is coming, but no-one seems able to hear him.

then the storm hits, the heavens open and you run for cover.

For Jeremiah, the oncoming storm was the war machine Babylon.  A brutal nation who expanded by force.

but then the air clears, the mugginess lifts.  All around is devastation.  and yet, the sky is clear, the air is light, there’s a strange quiet that descends.

it’s like for so long Jeremiah has only been able to see the oncoming storm, and then suddenly he can see past the horizon.   Last week we saw how he looks 70 years ahead and Israel’s return, but here he looks way beyond, to the New Covenant, to the time of Jesus, even to Jesus’ return.  We call this type of writing Apocalyptic literature.  which means a revelation or more literally a lifting of the veil.  it is a vision of a far future that can not be perceived.

We have our own modern types of apocalyptic literature.

there is, for example, the robot apocalypse.  In these apocalypses… apocalypti? apcalaypseee?  In these futures humanity is exterminated or subdued by an army of robots, more technological advanced, more intelligent and rational, and vastly more powerful than ourselves.  A variation on a theme is the alien apocalypse.

Or there is the zombie apocalypse.  This time humanity is conquered, not by a superior intelligence, but by a more primitive and irrational group.  triumphing, not through superior intellect but through strength of numbers and savagery.  Driven simply by hunger or rage.

Or there are more utopian visions of the future, where humanity advances and conquers space or time, and in so doing becomes a more peaceful and wise race.

these stories often connect with a Darwinian creation story.  the idea that through our intelligence and resourcefulness we were able to conquer and subdue the world around us allowing us to rise to the top of the evolutionary ladder results in an apocalyptic story that sees us conquered and subdued by an even more intelligent and advanced society.

Or a creation story that sees humanity rising out of a chaotic and brutal process of natural selection views the present peace and civilization as a momentary blip, that the return to chaos and brutality is inevitable.  in these stories it is only the humans who are able to become monstrous themselves who survive.

Or a more humanist view of the world sees humanity continuing to evolve, no longer bound by time or space, able to stand up and subdue, not just the world, but space as well.  Leaving behind any need for poverty, war and certainly beyond the need for religion.

But apocalyptic stories also tie into our fears, Doctor who’s Dalek’s were a thinly veiled metaphor for the Nazis, during the cold war visions or the far future were often the product of a nuclear disaster, more recent visions of the future are a product of environmental disasters or energy shortages.  And the most recent examine the war on terror and government’s treatment of it’s citizens

For the Jewish people of Jeremiah’s time it would have been so easy to succumb to a Babylonian apocalypse.  to look at the situation and say this is the end of our world.  but God says No.  Remember where you came from, remember your creation story.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.”
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,

³⁵ This is what the LORD says,
he who appoints the sun
to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar—
the LORD Almighty is his name:

³⁶ “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,”
declares the LORD,
“will the descendants of Israel ever cease
to be a nation before me.”
So God says, as a people, you were not born out of violence and war, you will not be overcome by it.

As a people you were called by my promises, you were spoken into existence.  Just like the sun, just like the moon and stars, just like the waves.

The thing about the sun is, every night it vanishes, the world around you becomes dark.  In the pitch black, in the cold it’s hard to realize that such a source of light and heat is just past the horizon.  But every morning it’s return is guaranteed.  And every day the moon and stars dissappear from sight only to return during the night.  Every day the waves are taken away with the tide, they always return.

70 years is a long time when a normal lifespan is 50 -60 years.  Only the very youngest of those taken into exile will return, and they will be the very oldest of those who go back.  To get through this period of time they needed to admit that they are aliens and strangers on earth. ¹⁴People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own, a better country—a heavenly one.

we have a temporary view of the world,

God has a much longer view in mind

God, through Jeremiah, is putting down plans which reach hundreds of years in the future

God reminds the people that our empires are temporary, things move around.  the nations that are the richest strongest most connected or influential could be third world in a few decades.  We might find ourselves in a very different place very quickly.

What is the potential apocalypse that lies on our horizon,

Perhaps the country will head further down the road of secular rationalism, and we will be in a place where people with faith are viewed as irrational and dangerous,

Or perhaps the economy will collapse and we will be heading to Poland to find work, Poland being one of the few places that still has a skilled work force.  (maybe we should remember that our present guests could one day be our hosts)

Or perhaps there will be another world war, or a global pandemic, or natural disasters or who knows, maybe an alien invasion or the rise of artificial intelligence.   (did you know that scientists have created little robots controlled by rats brains, and are working on using cats brains – I’ve never trusted cats.)

and what about our own personal apocalypses.  failing health, debt or unemployment, failed relationships or our own moral failures.

If these things happen we don’t want to be like the false prophets who sat around saying ‘peace, peace, everything is going to be fine.’  but neither do we want to be like those who despair and say ‘it’s the end of the world, we will never last this, our faith cannot survive, our story is ending.’

We need to be able to see, even if its just for a moment, that there is a future just over the horizon.

But equally we can be so invested in the current age.  Just like in the zombie apocalypse civilisation and order is seen as a momentary blip before the chaos returns, for the Christian, peace, freedom of religion and expression of those beliefs are the exception not the norm.  Just as the sun is sure to rise, it is sure to set.  For a time we live in a First world country of freedom and influence.  But time moves on, and when it does will we find that we were investing in the current age, or in the world to come.  Was all our treasure in property or a good bank, a nice car, or a comfortable retirement, or did we invest where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  In a kingdom that will last forever.

Back to Genesis,

Genesis also talks about the original relationship between God and Man.  God walks with Adam. Its an image of being in the presence of God.  When Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden they are cast out of God’s presence.  When Cain kills Abel God sends him East of Eden, further away from his presence.  this separation between God and Man keeps getting wider until the covenant with Israel.  At that time God’s presence is among them.  First in the fire and the cloud, then in the tent of meeting and then in the temple.

But as the poeple rebel against God his presence again leaves them, and again the people are sent East, away from the place where they had found God’s presence.

and it is at this point when Jeremiah looks forward and sees a time when they will all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest,”

the word to “know” is yada, to ascertain by seeing

Revelation talks about the city of God coming to earth.  it describes a new Jerusalem, where God is with his people, he is the temple, he is their light.  a place where everyone walks in the presence of God.

it’s almost as if the writers of Genesis, Jeremiah and John were collaborating when they wrote their books.

Jeremiah and John had both been through stormy times, but they were able to see past the horizon, to the heavenly city.

they imagined the return to the state of Eden.

This return to the state of Eden began with the death of Jesus.

When Jesus died – when the new covenant was seeled in his blood – the temple curtain was torn.  the seperation between man and the presence of God, was broken.  Man could walk into God’s presence.  God’s presence could move among us.

And so, we are the temple of God’s holy spirit.  And it’s as we encounter God, as we seek his presence, that we find, often during the greatest storms in our life, that we too can glimpse past the horizon, that we can set our hearts on the heavenly city.

I want to tell you a quick story from the end of the cold war.

In Liepzig, Communist East Germany in 1982 six people  started a prayer group. They gathered at St. Nicholas Church each Monday night and prayed for peace. Afterwards, they would stand outside with a candle for one hour.   they started holding weekly prayer meetings, with no other agenda than to pray for peace.  Only a few dozen people were there.  As the country around them struggled under communist rule they kept meeting faithfully.  Gradually there numbers increased.  After each meeting they would march through the town holding banners and candles.  occasionally the secret police would surround the church and rough up the marchers.  Paster Wonnenburger preached peace and gave practical advice on non-violence, despite the death threats that he was recieving. on October 9th 1989, East Berlin was celebrating 40 years of the communist state.  For the Liepzig group to march on this night was seen as a provocation.  They were threatened, the army was sent in, and were told to shoot any protestors.  70,000 people turned up that night to pray to talk about peace and to march.  It’s not known why the army didn’t shoot.  This was seen as a turning point in East Germany.

the next week 120,000 met to pray and protest, the next week 500,000.

At the start of November nearly 1 million people turned up.  The East German leader resigned humiliated and on November 9th the East German government announced that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin.

A leader of the Communist Party in East Germany said, “We had planned everything, we were prepared for everything, but not for candles and prayers.”

The good Samaritan (the bad and the ugly)

Jeremiah 6 – shot through the heart

This was the plan for my sermon on Jeremiah 6, if you missed it, want a reminder, or have stumbled on to this page because you’re planning a sermon on Jeremiah 6 and want to steal some ideas, welcome.

If you were not there, I asked my friend to play songs during the sermon, all kind of broken love songs about being betrayed and broken hearted. These are the songs in bold.

There are some extra bits in here that I missed when I was speaking, and I said a few extra things.  But the basic points are the same. 

To see the powerpoint click here

Continually talk about God and Judah as a marriage!!!

Shot through the heart

Why do we sing songs about heartbreak and loss, why does this resonate so deeply within us.  If a film, or a story or a song makes us smile, or laugh then it’s good, but it’s only a classic if it brings a tear to the eye.  

before we look at Jeremiah 6 we need to go back about 600 years and look at Moses

Lets imagine for a moment that this here is Moses, striding down from Mount Sinai holding two large slabs of stone and on them is written, the ten commandments.  

These are God’s contract with his people Israel. A covenant.

one way of thinking about this is as a wedding contract.  Theses old testament rules were God’s way of saying ‘this is what I expect from you in this relationship’ this is what it will take to make this marriage work.  

And God also puts his side of the contract, if the people keep the contract they will be blessed, they will be protected, they will be fruitful and most importantly they will be blessed in the land that God has given them.  The people s  relationship with the world around themis entirely tied into their relationship with God

If they break the contract, if they reject God, then there are consequences.  This is what you could call the pre-nup and it’s the polar opposite of God’s blessings, God will leave them, they will be cursed, they will be unprotected, they will be unfruitful and unhealthy, but worst of all they will be driven out of the land that God has given them.

When we think about the consequences of the people’s sin, we have to remember that its rooted in this contract, it’s rooted in a this relationship between God and his people. marriage of heaven and earth

Aint no sunshine

Why are we drawn to songs and stories and films about loss and hurt and betrayal.  because this stuff has to be shared.  We need to know that someone feels what we feel and we are wired to share in the pain of others.  We say a problem shared is a problem halved, but it goes much deeper than that.  There’s just something that seems right about it.  And equally, when you can’t share, when no-body seems to understand how you’re feeling.  That isn’t right.  That’s now the way the world is meant to be.  

There’s this conversation you hear sometimes, it’s shortly after someone has left a long relationship and there friend will say to them,

hey i saw your ex the other day

yeah?….  So…  how are they doing?

And what they want to hear is

Oh terrible

and its not because we’re bitter and spiteful, ok sometimes it is  cause we’re bitter and spiteful.  But its also because we need to hear that they feel something too.

our hearts need to be shared, and so does Gods

But I am full of the wrath of the LORD,
      and I cannot hold it in.

Jeremiah finds himself involved in the heart of God, overwhelmed by his anger, and hurt, unable to keep it in.   Though he may want to.  But that is part what being a prophet is about, not just communicating the message, but also sharing the heart of God

Now It’s 600 years since Moses and those original promises between God and his people.  Israel has again and again fallen away from God, but he was always able to call them back, there were bad patches, but the relationship was restored.  This time though things are different.  A long time ago Israel was split in two, The northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.  Israel hit a point where they refused to turn back to God, and eventually the Israel was destroyed.  Now Judah is going the same way.  God has been speaking to them, calling them back but they just won’t listen.

God keeps calling but they will not answer the phone

When Jeremiah says
      I am bringing disaster on this people,
      the fruit of their schemes,
      because they have not listened to my words
      and have rejected my law.
These are not the words of a street preaching shouting curses at every fool who passes by, this is a lament, a deep cry of pain from a god who’s heart has been completely and utterly… broken

God wants to repair this relationship, he still wants to relent from sending disaster,

but Judah have Left God,  they have chosen to pursue other lovers

the wedding contract has been broken

Cry me a river

Jeremiah warns the people that as a consequence of their continued disobedience God will leave them, they will be cursed, they will be unprotected, they will be unfruitful and unhealthy, and worst of all they will be driven out of the land that God has given them.

13 “From the least to the greatest,
      all are greedy for gain;
      prophets and priests alike,
      all practice deceit.
14 They dress the wound of my people
      as though it were not serious.
      ’Peace, peace,’ they say,
      when there is no peace.

The countries problems are compounded by the fact that the very people who should be leading Judah back to God are themselves part of the problem.  The prophets and the priests, the established religious community aren’t really engaging with the problems around them, or with god’s heart.  

Some religious reforms have taken place, but they’re only skin deep.  They’ve made surface efforts to fix the relationship, but its not from the heart, The relationship has gone terminal and they’re trying to fix it with plasters.

 ’Peace, peace,’ they say,
      when there is no peace.

Whenever they meet someone they say Shalom, which means peace and it’s a common middle eastern greeting.  But Shalom means more than our lazy English word peace, its wholeness and well being Its about your whole life being where it should be.  It basically means ‘it’s already been paid for’

But Jeremiah can see all around him that there is no shalom these days.  Something is very broken in the world around him.  

i think we do this all the time.  

God starts to press our hearts about something, we become aware of the brokenness around us, but instead of fully engaging with the issue, instead of truly changing our lives we change the details and carry on as before.  Our hearts remain unchanged and eventually that feeling of dissastisfaction, of frustration passes.  

Take the environment.  We come up with solutions like bio diesel or hybrid cars.  But are these just solutions that quiet our consciences and settle our guilt so we can keep driving more cars and bigger cars.  We carbon offset our twice a year holiday abroad.   Are we just covering for the fact that the way we are living, the way we are consuming is simply unsustainable.  Fixing our carbon footprint may need more than a quick scrub, it requires a total change in the way we live our lives.  

Or we always buy our fairtrade coffee and bananas.  But what would it take to be able to open every cupboard or wardrobe in our house and say with confidence that we knew where each item has come from, we know that everything we own has been ethically sourced, we know where our money is going and the good it is doing.  What would it take to get ourselves out of a system that keeps prices low here at the expense of our neighbours abroad.  What if we refused to be servants of a system that builds corporations at the expense of community.  

What if we got involved in the stuff we donate too.  What if we moved out of the nice areas of Leeds and got involved in the rough areas of Leeds.  The places that are desperately broken, that are literally dieing a slow death, desperate for regeneration, desperate for a new identity and some sort of community.  

Jeremiah talks about finding the good way.  Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said, I am the way.  Perhaps this is what the early church meant when they called themselves followers of the way.  

You see Jesus is our model, our design for the perfect outliving of the good way.  he is our model. Its his life we need to emmulate.

Following ‘the way’ has always meant a radical change in lifestyle.  

What do I care about incense from Sheba
      or sweet calamus from a distant land?
      Your burnt offerings are not acceptable;
      your sacrifices do not please me.”

They were concerned with the form of their worship, but were not engaging with God’s heart.

I’ll let you into a secret.  I don’t get singing in church, I don’t particularly like it, cause it’s a bit odd.  I’m sure if anyone came in from outside who didn’t have any knowledge of church they must think it’s bizarre, to meet up each week and sing songs.  

I remember going to the rugby for the first time.  Some of the songs people sing there are awful.  

Leeds, Leeds, Leeds..

But after about half an hour something strange happened.  I started singing along

Leeds, Leeds, Leeds..

What had seemed awful a little earlier suddenly started to mean something.  Because I was emotionally engaged in the game.

Cause there are moments when it makes perfect sense to sing.

When you’re winning, when you’re heartbroken, when you’re angry

We can get obsessed with the form of worship, but it only makes sense when we are engaged with the heart of worship, when it’s a response to what’s happening in our whole lives.

We might want Wesleyan hymns, but Wesley would, as he put it, catch on fire for God and people would watch him burn

We might be welsh revivalists, but Evan Roberts didn’t sleep cause he spent most of the night praying.  and most of the day leading revival meetings cause his heart as completely caught up with Gods.

Or maybe we prefer Matt Redman.  who was a kid who sexually abused by his step dad, but God healed him and restored him.  

Where do we stand, here in Leeds in 2010.

As the prophets and priests in this city, how are we to truly

Well Leeds is our city, a city with below average church attendance, brokeness, resistant to God, but maybe not beyond caring,

We are the prophets and the priests.  Standing between heaven and earth.  Full of potential, but there’s always more of God’s heart for us to understand.