WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.379 So we've been studying Jeremiah for the past few weeks, and Jeremiah is a long book, 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:11.560 and it's helpful to keep in mind the big picture and the key themes while we read this long book. 00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:16.480 So Jeremiah was called to be a prophet when he was young. He was called to be a prophet to 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:23.300 unfaithful people, people who turned away from God over many years, and so God is judging them 00:00:23.300 --> 00:00:29.620 for their unfaithfulness. Jeremiah is communicating two main themes. One is that God judges covenant 00:00:29.620 --> 00:00:37.399 infidelity and sin, and the other is that he is restoring an international people to himself. 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:44.460 And today we're studying chapters 16 and 17. While I walk through these passages, I want to call out 00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:51.740 three questions for us to ask ourselves, and we can have those as takeaways for today. So one of them 00:00:51.740 --> 00:00:57.740 is, first question is, who do you belong to? Second is, what is more important to you than God? 00:00:57.740 --> 00:01:05.359 And third is, how can you change? Right? So who do you belong to? What is more important to you than God? 00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:14.219 And how can you change? So let's dive into verses one through nine. So we know that Jeremiah has 00:01:14.219 --> 00:01:20.900 already lived a really hard life. He's been chased out of town by the people we grew up with in his 00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:28.620 hometown, and it's about to get harder. God is commanding Jeremiah to deprive himself of three 00:01:28.620 --> 00:01:35.460 things. So in verses one through four, Jeremiah is commanded not to get married, nor to have children. 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:43.520 In verses five through six, God commands Jeremiah not to mourn for the dead. And in verses eight through 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:51.239 nine, God commands Jeremiah not to feast or to celebrate, for example, at weddings. So no marriage 00:01:51.239 --> 00:02:00.780 and kids, no mourning, no celebrating, right? This sounds pretty awful. And so we have to ask, like, 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:07.259 what's going on here? And again, Jeremiah is a prophet. What God is doing is he's using Jeremiah's 00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:13.939 life to communicate a message. There are multiple ways to deliver a message. You can do a direct, 00:02:14.140 --> 00:02:21.000 direct message like sermon like this. You could show a symbolic action. So you guys remember when 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:27.300 Jeremiah was commanded to hide his linen cloth in the rock and it was ruined. And that symbolized 00:02:27.300 --> 00:02:33.780 the ruined pride of Judah, right? So Jeremiah has done that. And now God's commanding him to use his life 00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:40.120 events as a message. There are other examples of prophets doing this in the Bible. There's Hosea. 00:02:40.420 --> 00:02:48.599 So in the book of Hosea, we read that God commands him to marry and have children with a woman that is 00:02:48.599 --> 00:02:56.719 promiscuous. God tells him that she's going to cheat on him and he should marry her. And so she does, 00:02:56.780 --> 00:03:01.659 she's cheat on him. And then God commands Hosea to take her back to love her again. So that's what he 00:03:01.659 --> 00:03:06.960 does. He goes after her and he takes her back and he loves her again. And through these actions, 00:03:07.340 --> 00:03:12.919 Hosea was to communicate that God's people had been unfaithful to him like a cheating wife, 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:20.639 but God still loved them. God still loved his people. There's also Ezekiel. So Ezekiel was told 00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:29.259 that his wife, the delight of his eyes would die. And when she died, Ezekiel was not allowed to cry for 00:03:29.259 --> 00:03:35.500 her or mourn for her. Not allowed to do anything. Sounds pretty harsh, right? And the reason is 00:03:35.500 --> 00:03:43.139 because Ezekiel was to prefigure what the Israelites would do. Soon the temple, which was the delight of 00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:50.239 the eyes of the Israelites, it would be desecrated. It'd be violated. And their sons and daughters would 00:03:50.239 --> 00:03:56.079 be killed. And the Israelites would not mourn, would not grieve, just like Ezekiel did not for his wife. 00:03:56.080 --> 00:04:03.880 And so we have those examples. What was Jeremiah supposed to communicate through his actions, 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:10.060 through his life? So a marriage, Jeremiah wasn't allowed to marry, right? And that's because the 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:15.960 people of the land, the mothers and fathers, the sons and daughters, they would die. They would die 00:04:15.960 --> 00:04:21.699 by sword, by famine, and by disease. That's what Steve preached about last week, right? Those three 00:04:21.699 --> 00:04:28.539 things that happened for more. And in staying single, Jeremiah would prefigure the people who did 00:04:28.539 --> 00:04:34.180 marry, who were fathers and mothers, who had sons and daughters, but would later be single, be alone, 00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:41.319 because they would lose all of their family when they died, right? So Jeremiah was supposed to be 00:04:41.319 --> 00:04:48.319 alone. Second, Jeremiah wasn't supposed to mourn when people died. He wasn't supposed to express his pity. 00:04:48.319 --> 00:04:55.719 Why? Because God had withdrawn his blessing and his love and his pity from the people. 00:04:57.279 --> 00:05:05.379 And so when people died, when disaster came upon them from war, they wouldn't be going about having 00:05:05.379 --> 00:05:11.600 funerals, wouldn't be mourning, wouldn't be grieving for the people. So Jeremiah was to show that that's 00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:17.640 what was going to happen. The birds of the air and the wild animals of the land would eat their bodies 00:05:17.640 --> 00:05:25.140 because people would not be buried, right? So that normal life event would stop. And third, 00:05:25.700 --> 00:05:31.680 Jeremiah wasn't allowed to feast. He wasn't allowed to celebrate because God was bringing an end to joy, 00:05:31.939 --> 00:05:37.560 to celebration. The normal life event of weddings would cease to take place. So Jeremiah was supposed 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:43.100 to deprive himself of these celebrations, right? So this is God's message through his prophet. 00:05:43.780 --> 00:05:47.860 Disaster is coming upon the people because of their unfaithfulness and their idolatry, 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:53.920 and it's going to have devastating effects. I think it's pretty incredible what these prophets are 00:05:53.920 --> 00:06:01.240 doing, right? Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, in order to obey God, in order to serve God. For those of us here 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:05.720 who are single, I think if God asked you to be single and not have a family in the future, 00:06:06.139 --> 00:06:12.740 just so he could tell a message, I think that would be really hard, right? Or if God commanded you to 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:20.660 marry someone that you knew was going to cheat on you, also very hard. Or for those of us who have 00:06:20.660 --> 00:06:27.579 families, if we were told our beloved husband and wife or our children would die and we couldn't mourn 00:06:27.579 --> 00:06:33.859 for them, also very hard. So what I observe about these prophets is that they were willing to suffer 00:06:33.859 --> 00:06:40.579 in their service for God because they knew that they were not their own. They didn't belong to 00:06:40.579 --> 00:06:48.839 themselves, but they belonged to God. And because they belonged to God, God had the right to ask them 00:06:48.839 --> 00:06:55.319 of anything he wanted. So what does this mean for us? What's the application? I don't think the 00:06:55.319 --> 00:07:00.279 application is to be pessimistic and prepare ourselves for the worst case scenario, right? 00:07:00.719 --> 00:07:08.860 To prepare yourself for celibacy. I think the application is that we should recognize that we 00:07:08.860 --> 00:07:18.100 belong to God and we should nurture the desire to have this posture before God. That God, if you ask me 00:07:18.100 --> 00:07:25.800 anything, I will say yes. And we know that this is true, that we do belong to God. In 1 Corinthians 6, 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:31.439 which we studied a few months ago, Paul says, you are not your own. You are bought at a price, 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:38.460 right? Christ bought us with his blood. So my first question is, who do you belong to? Who's the boss 00:07:38.459 --> 00:07:46.379 of your life? Do you belong to yourself? Maybe you let God inform your big life decisions, 00:07:46.979 --> 00:07:51.919 kind of like a financial advisor with investments. You know, he's, he has good stuff. He has good 00:07:51.919 --> 00:07:59.199 knowledge. You know, don't murder, don't steal. Don't lie, love other people. That's all fine. That's 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:05.599 all good stuff. But when he commands you to do something that doesn't make sense or is too costly, 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:12.000 maybe you think, I'm not doing that. You know, that, that doesn't make sense. That costs too much. 00:08:12.840 --> 00:08:19.640 I have the final call here and I'm not going to do that, right? Do you belong to other people? 00:08:20.220 --> 00:08:25.700 Maybe you only feel good about yourself when your coworkers or your boss or your friends have a 00:08:25.700 --> 00:08:32.220 high opinion of you. Does your world crumble when other people think you're incompetent or you're 00:08:32.220 --> 00:08:37.279 inconsiderate? And so you have to do whatever it takes to get back on their good side, right? 00:08:38.820 --> 00:08:43.420 Or do you belong to God? Are you confident that he loves you and that he cares for you, 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:49.700 that he has your best in mind? And so you trust him and obey him. Does he have the final word in your 00:08:49.700 --> 00:08:57.060 life? I don't think the right way to go about this is to say, ah, I feel so bad about myself. I've got to, 00:08:57.059 --> 00:09:02.579 I've got to do this better. Um, I think first we look at Christ who's the greatest example of someone 00:09:02.579 --> 00:09:08.799 who suffered for God. Um, he trusted God completely. He served him, suffered for him. He was the ultimate, 00:09:08.799 --> 00:09:15.739 ultimate picture of putting God first, of putting him before himself. Um, in obeying God, Jesus went from 00:09:15.739 --> 00:09:21.719 being the creator of the universe to being a baby born in a manger. Uh, he went from having an eternal 00:09:21.720 --> 00:09:28.480 relationship in the Trinity to being abandoned by his closest friends to being betrayed by them. So 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:36.560 he was lonely and he went from a glory and majesty to being mocked and insulted by sinful men. And so 00:09:36.560 --> 00:09:42.399 I think we remember Jesus and how he loved us. And we let that stir up for our, in our hearts, um, 00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:47.240 love for him, right? Don't go halfway. Don't settle, but let's strive to say to God, 00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:55.299 anything you command me, I'll do because I know you love me and I know, um, you care for me. And I 00:09:55.299 --> 00:10:01.620 think, uh, we, we foster this daily in little decisions in our lives. All right, let's move on 00:10:01.620 --> 00:10:10.740 to verses 10 through 13. So in verse 10, um, God says, when you tell this people all these words and 00:10:10.740 --> 00:10:16.519 they say to you, why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is 00:10:16.519 --> 00:10:21.740 the sin that we have committed against the Lord, our God? Then you shall say to them, because your 00:10:21.740 --> 00:10:27.699 fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and I've gone after other gods and have served and 00:10:27.699 --> 00:10:33.639 worshiped them and have forsaken me and have not kept my law. And because you have done worse than 00:10:33.639 --> 00:10:40.079 your fathers for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn evil will, refusing to listen to me. 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:47.180 Therefore, I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known. 00:10:47.420 --> 00:10:52.100 And there you shall serve other gods day and night for I will show you no favor. 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:58.520 I think it's pretty incredible what the people are asking. Uh, it's, they don't know why these 00:10:58.520 --> 00:11:03.060 disasters are happening to them. They're blind to what they've done over all these years. It's, 00:11:03.060 --> 00:11:07.740 it's like an eight year old, uh, on the playground, pushing someone else over. And, uh, they're, 00:11:07.740 --> 00:11:11.360 they, they get disciplined for it. And they're like, what did I do? Right. They have no idea. 00:11:11.940 --> 00:11:17.299 And, uh, and God's like, are you serious? I'll tell you what you did. Uh, instead of following 00:11:17.299 --> 00:11:21.799 him, they forsaken him. Uh, they've been stubborn. They followed their evil hearts. 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:31.240 And so my second question to you is what is more important to you than God, right? What are the 00:11:31.240 --> 00:11:37.580 idols in your life? We might not follow, um, little small statues and figurines, but we still have 00:11:37.580 --> 00:11:42.960 idols, things that are more important than God. What causes you to forsake God, um, turn away from 00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:50.980 him to say to him, you know what, when push comes to shove, I would rather have this than you. Uh, 00:11:50.980 --> 00:11:54.560 one way to figure this out is you could fill in the sentence, complete the sentence. 00:11:54.559 --> 00:12:02.000 My life would fall apart if I didn't have blank, right? My life would fall apart if I didn't have 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:09.199 blank. So what is that to you? Maybe it's a spouse or a child, uh, maybe a promotion, a raise, 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:15.359 maybe it's health and beauty, or again, the good opinion of others. Uh, for me, it was marriage. 00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:21.859 Uh, I really wanted to meet my future wife in college and get married early, enjoy that companionship. 00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:27.759 And, uh, but that did not happen, right? Uh, college was lonely. Post-college was lonely for 00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:34.860 most of my twenties and I was frustrated. Uh, I knew that God loved me and I knew that God knew me, 00:12:34.940 --> 00:12:41.240 but that didn't help because I thought, God, if you know me, if you knew me, if you made me this way, 00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:48.259 and if you're in control of anything, of everything and, and you're good, why is this happening to me? 00:12:48.259 --> 00:12:56.200 Right. Um, why am I alone? Why are you not giving me what I want? And so I turned away from God. I 00:12:56.200 --> 00:13:01.620 turned to other things. Um, I would turn to pornography for physical gratification. I would 00:13:01.620 --> 00:13:07.759 turn to alcohol to drown my sorrows. And sometimes I just turned to hopelessness because that would 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:13.000 numb my feelings, right? I just wouldn't feel lonely anymore, or I wouldn't feel disappointed 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:19.039 anymore. And, um, that's what I did. I turned away from God, but God didn't turn away from me. 00:13:19.259 --> 00:13:25.399 God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. During those hard years, he ordered my 00:13:25.399 --> 00:13:31.740 circumstances so that I would start developing a really close friendship, um, non-romantic with a 00:13:31.740 --> 00:13:37.019 really cool girl named Carolyn. And, uh, and we would hang out a lot. We would become friends. I didn't make 00:13:37.019 --> 00:13:42.579 a move because she was out of my league, right? Um, we actually did go to the same college. Um, but 00:13:42.579 --> 00:13:48.059 after years of being friends, I finally built up the courage to ask her on a date. Uh, she said, why? 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:55.480 Or she said, yes, I don't know why. Um, but she said, why? Yeah. Now we're married. We have a kid, 00:13:55.519 --> 00:14:01.000 right? So God is good. God is good. Uh, he blessed me even when I didn't deserve it. Even when I turned to 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:09.299 other things that hurt me in the process. And so is there anything in your life that's a deal breaker 00:14:09.299 --> 00:14:15.419 with God? If you don't get it, you would turn away from him. So don't be tricked. Um, don't, 00:14:15.419 --> 00:14:21.799 don't lack in faith like I was right. God, as it says, is the spring of living water. God gives us the 00:14:21.799 --> 00:14:30.919 things that we need. Um, don't be tricked into turning away from him. Um, so let's move on to, uh, 00:14:30.919 --> 00:14:37.959 chapter 16, verse 14. So a few, few minor points that I'll, I'll go across quickly. Uh, in verses 00:14:37.959 --> 00:14:45.459 14 and 15, God's speaking comfort to his people. Uh, he says he will restore them back to the land. 00:14:45.719 --> 00:14:52.500 And this is a really sweet word, right? Now is the time when God is judging the people for a sin, 00:14:52.500 --> 00:14:57.980 for their sins, but almost in the same breath, because God is compassionate and loving, 00:14:57.980 --> 00:15:03.440 he reassures them of his mercy and his faithfulness. He says that he will restore them back to the land. 00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:10.240 And so there's hope, right? With God, there's always hope. But now is the time for judgment. 00:15:10.440 --> 00:15:17.180 Verse 16, God says he will judge the people. He will send fishermen and hunters after the people. 00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:23.080 Uh, nothing's hidden from God. God sees all of their sin and his judgment is going to be severe and 00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:29.700 complete. Um, his, the hunters will, will be able to track all of the people in the crevices of the 00:15:29.700 --> 00:15:36.560 rocks and find them. And, um, and so that's going to happen. And in verse 19, we read of the nations 00:15:36.560 --> 00:15:43.900 coming to God to know his name. We know that the salvation of the nations is on God's heart 00:15:43.900 --> 00:15:50.240 and is one of the main themes of Jeremiah. God wants his salvation to reach the ends of the earth. 00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:55.740 And though the Israelites have failed at being a faithful people to God, God's purposes will not 00:15:55.740 --> 00:16:03.379 fail. The nations will know God. And so if you love God, do you love God, right? If you love him, 00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:09.320 love what he loves. Think about what's on his heart. His aim is to make disciples of all the nations. 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:19.000 Make that your aim too. Looking at chapter 17 and my third question, how can you change, right? How can you 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:25.659 change? Um, I, you know, I like Will Ferrell. I like his movies. I enjoy watching him, uh, act like a man 00:16:25.659 --> 00:16:32.179 child in his movies. I think that's really funny. Um, but that phenomenon isn't very funny in real life. 00:16:32.460 --> 00:16:41.379 I, I think it's a real and scary possibility that I could turn 50 and I'm not one day wiser or more 00:16:41.379 --> 00:16:48.279 mature or more loving than I was at 20, right? I don't think change happens automatically. It doesn't 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:54.159 happen by doing nothing or with wishful thinking. I think it takes work and discipline to grow. 00:16:54.720 --> 00:17:00.899 It takes prayer and reading God's word and putting my sins to death. But on the other hand, 00:17:01.179 --> 00:17:09.019 hard work and willpower, uh, they alone don't bring change. I could spend years learning about God, 00:17:09.220 --> 00:17:14.039 studying his word, looking really polished on the inside, but inwardly I could be rotting, 00:17:14.039 --> 00:17:23.139 rotting away with bitterness and resentment, uh, with lust and envy, with pride, right? So the problem 00:17:23.139 --> 00:17:29.539 is our hearts. Verse nine says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. 00:17:30.099 --> 00:17:35.659 Who can understand it? You know, it's not that we're ultimately good and every now and then we make 00:17:35.659 --> 00:17:41.579 bad choices, but the Bible says our hearts referring to our inward thoughts and emotions, 00:17:41.579 --> 00:17:49.980 our loves and our desires, our values. Our hearts are sick and beyond cure. It's like sin covers our 00:17:49.980 --> 00:17:55.559 bodies like a thick mud that just caked on and we're trying to get rid of it with our hands, but 00:17:55.559 --> 00:18:00.339 we're just rubbing it around. We're just moving it around with our muddy hands, right? What we need is 00:18:00.339 --> 00:18:05.939 God's cleansing water to wash us, to wash us clean, to make us new. We need God to give us new hearts. 00:18:05.940 --> 00:18:12.600 And this is what God promises later in Jeremiah chapter 31. God says, 00:18:12.840 --> 00:18:17.120 this is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. 00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:23.240 I will put my law in their, in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and 00:18:23.240 --> 00:18:29.960 they will be my people. What a reason to be filled with, with hope and joy. I mean, just think about the 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:35.900 times when you've tried to change your heart, tried to change something. Maybe you remember trying to 00:18:35.900 --> 00:18:42.519 be a more forgiving person, but you just can't. You couldn't because you couldn't get past the need 00:18:42.519 --> 00:18:48.040 for vengeance, right? Sometimes you think, I can't forgive that person because he needs to pay for what 00:18:48.040 --> 00:18:53.320 he did. Who's going to make him pay if I don't make him pay? Or you're trying to be a less prideful 00:18:53.320 --> 00:19:00.120 person, more humble, but you can't get past the thought that you really are better than somebody else. 00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:06.279 You're better because, you know, I'm, I'm smarter. I work harder. I'm more competent and more 00:19:06.279 --> 00:19:13.139 responsible. Why wouldn't I look down on her? I mean, she's lazy. She's stupid. That's just true. 00:19:13.259 --> 00:19:18.779 Right. And so we have these battles of the heart that we can't win by ourselves. You know, it's 00:19:18.779 --> 00:19:25.959 impossible without God, but with God, all things are possible. We need God to make our hearts new. 00:19:25.960 --> 00:19:31.120 And so I think we are diligent about these disciplines, about praying to God, reading God's 00:19:31.120 --> 00:19:36.620 word, but it's not by our might and by our power, but it's by God's spirit. We need to rely on him. 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:46.039 All right. Looking at the last section in chapter 17. So let's look at verses 19 through 27 in chapter 00:19:46.039 --> 00:19:53.539 17. This is about keeping the Sabbath. So it's a very practical application of trusting in God and 00:19:53.539 --> 00:19:58.519 having idols in our hearts. One of the ways that the people were disobeying God was that they were 00:19:58.519 --> 00:20:05.000 not keeping the Sabbath. Starting in verse 21, God says, be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:11.079 day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work 00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:18.139 on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy as I commanded your ancestors. Yet they did not listen or pay 00:20:18.140 --> 00:20:25.420 attention. They were stiff necked and would not listen or respond to discipline. This command goes 00:20:25.420 --> 00:20:30.740 back to the 10 commandments in Exodus chapter 20, where God says, remember the Sabbath day by keeping 00:20:30.740 --> 00:20:37.120 it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, 00:20:37.180 --> 00:20:43.780 your God. So how does this apply to us? Are we supposed to keep the Sabbath? If yes, what does it look 00:20:43.779 --> 00:20:50.440 like practically? Should we not carry anything heavy today, right? Nothing more than like 10 pounds? 00:20:52.460 --> 00:20:59.240 So to answer those questions, first, yes, I think we should keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath isn't just in 00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:06.660 the Old Testament. In Mark chapter 2 verse 27, God tells us, or Jesus tells us, Sabbath was made for man, 00:21:06.779 --> 00:21:13.200 not man for the Sabbath. So it's a part of God's creation order. It's for our good that we work six days 00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:20.640 and we rest one day and we keep it holy. What does this mean practically, right? What are some 00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:26.740 helpful guidelines for keeping the Sabbath? Well, I think that there are guidelines, but ultimately 00:21:26.740 --> 00:21:33.240 the specifics are down to a matter of personal conviction, right? I don't think it looks the same 00:21:33.240 --> 00:21:39.319 for different people. Here's what I mean. I think one guideline is that we should keep the Sabbath 00:21:39.319 --> 00:21:46.579 holy. Holy means set apart, right? It's, I'm using all these things for one purpose, but this, I'm using 00:21:46.579 --> 00:21:53.399 it for something else. So the Sabbath should be a special day. It should look different from your 00:21:53.399 --> 00:22:00.819 Saturday, from your Monday through Friday. And special doesn't mean just different. Like on Sundays, you 00:22:00.819 --> 00:22:06.960 watch NFL football at one o'clock and then at 4 30 and then Sunday night football at 8 30, 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:12.380 which I used to do, by the way, I used to watch nine hours of football on Sundays, right? Not good. 00:22:12.940 --> 00:22:21.980 And so that, that's not special in that way. Special means it's set apart for God, right? A time to focus 00:22:21.980 --> 00:22:30.100 on him, to worship him for something that's spiritually beneficial to you as well. And I think that's, 00:22:30.220 --> 00:22:34.220 that's what we're doing right now. That's something that we can practically do, getting together with 00:22:34.220 --> 00:22:40.819 other Christians, praising God with music, listening to his word preached. So that's one way to make it 00:22:40.819 --> 00:22:47.000 special, make Sunday special for God. How else can you keep the Sabbath day holy? How can you make it 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:54.920 special so you're growing in your love to God? Maybe it's singing praise songs at home or reading a book 00:22:54.920 --> 00:23:02.600 that will help you grow in, in, um, in devotion to God. So that's one guideline. Another guideline is 00:23:02.600 --> 00:23:09.620 that the Sabbath should be a restful and restorative day. This is where it can look different for different 00:23:09.620 --> 00:23:14.940 people. For example, if you're looking at a computer screen all day, every day while you're working, 00:23:14.940 --> 00:23:21.220 it might be restorative for you to get outside, uh, do some physical activity, go for a run, 00:23:21.220 --> 00:23:27.960 ride a bike, right? Um, maybe play some basketball, uh, that might be good for you. But if you're a 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:34.440 contractor and you're punishing your body every day, um, constructing, constructing buildings all week, 00:23:34.519 --> 00:23:42.980 it might be restorative for you to take a nap, right? Or to watch NFL football, right? And so, um, 00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:49.519 I'm, I think it's different in that way. I'm guessing in terms of what we should not do, 00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:57.200 it's not the most restorative thing probably to run all of our errands on Sunday or to save all of our 00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:05.680 homework, uh, for Sunday. Um, so what's, what's most restorative for you? What if, um, what would be 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:11.900 restful for you today so that if you did it, you'd be energized for tomorrow? Um, you'd be energized for 00:24:11.900 --> 00:24:18.559 the week to come. Um, so on, on hand, one hand, we should keep the Sabbath, right? What are some 00:24:18.559 --> 00:24:24.039 reasons, on the other hand, that we're tempted not to keep the Sabbath? Uh, what, what do we tell 00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:30.779 ourselves or what do we hear? One thing might be that, uh, we don't know that we're supposed to 00:24:30.779 --> 00:24:35.379 take a Sabbath, right? We never heard of that, but you can't use that excuse after this sermon. Uh, 00:24:35.379 --> 00:24:42.259 sorry about that. Another reason is that, uh, it's what we talked about earlier, idolatry. Maybe there's 00:24:42.259 --> 00:24:49.259 an idol in your life. Maybe we don't ultimately trust God to provide for us, and so we need to provide 00:24:49.259 --> 00:24:56.440 for ourselves. We need to put in those extra hours. Uh, maybe we don't value God supremely. Maybe other 00:24:56.440 --> 00:25:02.700 things are more important to us, right? Um, and so, yeah, we get into the office, we work more, we get ahead, 00:25:02.819 --> 00:25:08.519 or it's not a particularly special day, so again, we pack it full of errands. That's when we get stuff done, 00:25:08.519 --> 00:25:16.379 but then we go into Monday still tired and not restored. Um, but idolatry promises you one thing 00:25:16.379 --> 00:25:22.339 and it gives you another, right? That's what sin does. Verse five says, cursed is the man who trusts 00:25:22.339 --> 00:25:27.759 in man. Of course, cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose 00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:33.259 heart turns away from the Lord. But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. They will be like a tree 00:25:33.259 --> 00:25:41.759 planted by water and never fails to bear fruit. So again, we should dig out that idolatry in our 00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:49.279 hearts. Another big reason we fail to keep the Sabbath is that we fail to get our work done earlier 00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:54.400 in the week, and we're stuck with a long to-do list. Remember, we're supposed to work for six days 00:25:54.400 --> 00:26:00.940 and keep one as the Sabbath. So it's hard to do that when you're procrastinating. Um, you haven't done 00:26:00.940 --> 00:26:08.400 any homework till Sunday, and so you have to do it, right? Um, or you haven't done any shopping for 00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:13.380 food. You haven't done your laundry, and so there's literally no food left in your fridge, or you have 00:26:13.380 --> 00:26:19.140 no clean clothes left, and you have to get your errands done, right? So practically speaking, if you 00:26:19.140 --> 00:26:23.340 want to rest for one day, you got to work for the other six, right? I mean, the world has a five-day 00:26:23.340 --> 00:26:29.480 work week with two days. I mean, the Bible has six work days and one. So work hard those six days and 00:26:29.480 --> 00:26:36.680 make sure you rest on that one day. Uh, so brothers and sisters, we, we need heart change. It's 00:26:36.680 --> 00:26:44.599 something that's beyond any of us to achieve. Uh, but Paul says in, in Romans 7, what a wretched man I am 00:26:44.599 --> 00:26:51.279 who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death. Thanks be to God who delivers me through 00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:58.860 Jesus Christ our Lord. So be encouraged because the Lord died to save sinners, to save me, and to save you. 00:26:59.480 --> 00:27:06.039 Uh, let's say with Jeremiah, as he says in chapter 17, heal me, Lord, and I will be healed. Save me, 00:27:06.099 --> 00:27:13.740 and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise. Let's pray. Uh, Heavenly Father, thank you for your 00:27:13.740 --> 00:27:19.059 word of truth. Thank you for your word of grace and instruction. Our hearts are desperately sick, 00:27:19.559 --> 00:27:25.880 but in Christ you give us new hearts, and so we have hope. Please help us to be wholly devoted to you. 00:27:26.500 --> 00:27:31.380 Please help us to cast down the idols in our lives, and please help us to trust you for deep, 00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:35.020 lasting heart change. And we pray in Christ's name. Amen.