Posted May 4th, 2008 by sound · ·

Date: May 4, 2008
Passage: Jeremiah 15:15-21
Message: Incurable Wounds
Theme: Reality Bites

I want to speak this week and next on matters that may appear to some of you to be on the edge of unbelief.
In fact I hope you will see that it is actually the very opposite. That, in fact faith thrives on the edge of belief!

I take great heart from Jeremiah.
Not once in this wonderful book, but 7 times we find Jeremiah on the edge.
These passages are often referred to as his ‘confessions’ or his ‘laments’
Call them what you like, but don’t underestimate the depth of their pain and honesty!

Read v18

I want to talk about incurable wounds!

When is enough enough?
Ever had those times when you think – I can’t take any more…. And then some more comes!
Ever get to that point where you won’t answer the phone or you hear a knock on the door and you make out you’re not home!!!
Or you just want to book a one way ticket to the Bahamas.

What do you do when you’ve had enough as a Christian?
What do you do when you’re disappointed with God?
I want to share with you something of the re-occurring tension I have lived with in 30 years of ministry.
It has to do with the matter of EXPECTATIONS and REALITY.

Christianity invites us to live with high expectations.
The more we discover about God – the more we know what this God COULD do in our lives.

I was the last generation to have one of those PROMISE BOXES! Remember them!
Pull out a scroll each day and be reminded what God COULD DO!

Problem comes when the God we KNOW doesn’t act in a way we KNOW he could!

Job 29:18…..
“I THOUGHT, ‘I will die in my house, my days as numerous as the grains of sand. My roots will reach to the water, and the dew will lie all night on my branches. My glory will remain fresh in me, the bow ever new in my hand.’”

I thought…. that’s how I imagined my life would run.
But then he hits us with reality in Job 30:16
“My life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me. Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest….

His sentiments are similar in many ways to those in the song sung by Fantine in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.”
She’s a young single mother who is jobless, homeless, and unable to provide for her child because she was fired for refusing the sexual advances of her boss. In her earlier years she had found the love of her life, the father of her child, and been ecstatically happy. But one day he simply walked out and never returned. And thinking back on her life she sings this song,

“I had a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high, and life worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
I had a dream my life would be,
So different from this hell I’m living,
So different now from what it seemed…
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”

That’s what I’m talking about. Job had a dream of how his life would be and even how it would end, but now,
“Life has killed the dream he dreamed.”

There is something in us that says that somehow faith should be able to keep dreams alive!
We want to believe that faith can make everything the way it SHOULD be.

Part of our problem is that we think faith only has a spiritual dimension.
If we are right SPIRITUALLY then the rest of our lives come together.
That’s why Christians find it hard to be ‘RIGHT’ with God and yet have such physical, emotional or personal problems.
Something says it shouldn’t be like that!

Eg.
William Cowper
He wrote what I believe is the most stirring hymn ever written.

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

William Cowper lived a troubled life and in many ways God never made it plain!

He was so overwhelmed at one point he believed God was asking him to take his own life!
After time in a private asylum, he recovered his reason. Cowper moved to the country town of Olney, where John Newton, the ex-slave trader, was pastor. Soon they became close friends.

In 1771, Newton, became concerned with Cowper's increasing melancholy. Hoping to lift his spirits by keeping him busy, Newton suggested that he and Cowper co-author a book of hymns. Newton himself often wrote hymns to illustrate his Sunday sermons. "Amazing Grace" is one of the 280 hymns he wrote for the Olney Hymns.

Cowper wrote 68 of the hymns, including "Oh for a closer walk with God," "God moves in a mysterious way," and "There is a fountain filled with blood."

Cowper continued his struggle with faith until his death on April 25, 1800.
The last 10 years of his life he fought a terrible fear that he was doomed to eternal damnation.
His poem Castaway sums up his thoughts.

Tells of crew being washed off boat in a wild Atlantic storm.
The last stanza says,

No voice divine the storm allayed,
No light propitious shone,
When, snatched from all effectual aid,
We perished, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.

There is still this subliminal message in Christianity that if you just have faith, all the other pieces of the puzzle will fall into place!

How long to do we keep the hope that things will change before we accept the reality that they won’t!
Is it an act of un-faith to accept what we think God should change?

As a young pastor I desperately wanted an answer to this crisis.
I read books, I prayed, I asked questions, I studied Bible.
I have taken in all the movements of the last 30 years –
Pentecostalism, Signs and Wonders, Church Growth, Purpose Driven, Music and Worship and the Emerging Church……

And still in all of this we come back to this.
Where is God in the contradiction between my expectation and reality?

This is the very tension that Jeremiah lived with throughout 40 years of his ministry!

We might think that Jeremiah’s main problem was the people.
It wasn’t. Jeremiah’s problem was with God.

Read v15-18

Jeremiah could handle the reality of judgment on the people, but he couldn’t handle God’s indifference to him!
It’s like he says,
I can understand your activity toward the people – I can’t cope with your inactivity toward me!

In all of this will you notice how Jeremiah begins…..
…. You understand O Lord
Some of you know I have 6 letters written on my desk.
BEIHDN – But even if he does not
I have written another 4
YUOL – You understand O Lord

Jeremiah does not pretend to understand what’s happening but he does not lose his senses!
He knows that God knows!

With that he unloads!

I find all this interesting because when Jeremiah is in public he is absolutely fearless.
When he’s preaching he is as tough as nails.
But in private he is plagued by hurt, fear and doubts!

He prays, but it’s not quite like the prayer we sing about.
Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer
That calls me from a world of care
This time of prayer was anything but sweet!!

PERPLEXED – v16
I devoured your word. I couldn’t get enough of it. They were my heart and soul. I staked my life on them!

But faithfulness to your word has left me confused!

LONELY – v17
I have made the sacrifices. I know what it is to pay the price. Ministry has cost me and I’m not sure it’s been worth it!

HURT - v18
I understand hurt is part of the deal, but the pain is unending and the wounds are incurable.
I feel like I’ve been tricked.

It’s like a stream that should fill up with spring rains – when you get there its inexplicably empty.

Jeremiah is saying,
God you are not there when I need you most!!

How does God respond to this?
It’s like God says,
Jeremiah I like it when you talk straight, because that’s how I want to talk to you!

Read v19
….if you turn back, I’ll take you back
Seems tough doesn’t it.
God saw something that we tend to justify.

Self-pity!
When I look at Jeremiah I think his self-pity is justified. That’s our problem.
When it’s all said and done – we still have a last line of attack that says,
‘I deserve better than this!’
Nothing will feed disillusionment quicker than self-pity.
Nothing will squeeze the life out of faith quicker than feeling like we’ve been given a raw deal.

This is a tough book!
Remember in Jeremiah 12 just after Jeremiah got news that people from his own town had threatened to kill him, he complained to God and God said,
….if you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses. v5

I don’t want that kind of raw truth.
That’s not the kind of life that we are told about when someone shared the gospel with us.

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life…..

When it gets too hard to bear and I want to throw it in, all God says to me is….
When you come back, I will take you back…..that you may SERVE me.

Don’t miss that!
I think of Peter.
How he wanted to throw it in.
It was too hard…..He blasphemed…..He denied.
He cried.

One day Jesus said to Peter
Do you love me and it broke Peter’s heart.
Peter had looked for a way OUT but Jesus was looking for a way IN.
Who did God chose to stand up on the day of Pentecost?
The one who came back from the edge!

The name Rosie Ruiz is part of history.
On April 21, 1980 she crossed the line as winner of 84th Boston Marathon in a time of 2:31:56 seconds.
Incredible improvement of 25 minutes on New York marathon just 6 months earlier.

Incredible feat until someone questioned her.
Then it came out that no-one else could remember her along the course.
She had joined the race in the last mile!!

Rosie denied it all.
She was analyzed as a sociopath.
She lied with no sense of conscience, no sense of the enormity of what she was claiming.

In short, she thought that all that mattered in a race was the prize.
She wanted the wreath without running.
She wanted the recognition without the pain of the contest.

How many of us want to take part in the celebration of the gospel but we don’t want to run the race.
Who will be there when the race takes its toll, when we hit the wall and are not even sure we can finish it?

YUOL…… you understand O Lord

We want to finish, but it will only be by grace!
Discussion Questions

1. How do you recognize when you’ve had ‘enough’?
How do you deal with it?

2. Christianity invites us to live with high expectations.
The more we discover about God – the more we know what this God COULD do in our lives.

Talk about the things we know from the Bible that would lead us to have high expectations of God.

Why does this knowledge of God only heighten our disappointment at times?

3. Part of our problem is that we think faith only has a spiritual dimension.
If we are right SPIRITUALLY then the rest of our lives come together.
That’s why Christians find it hard to be ‘RIGHT’ with God and yet have such physical, emotional or personal problems.

Discuss
How long to do we keep the hope that things will change before we accept the reality that they won’t!
Is it an act of un-faith to accept what we think God should change?

4. Read Jeremiah 1:15-18
….. you understand O Lord [YUOL]
How important is that to us?
What difference does it make?

What deep hurts surface in these words of Jeremiah [v15-18]
Why are these things so hard to bear?

5. Read v19
When you come back, I will take you back…..that you may SERVE me.

Does that seem harsh to you? Why?
Why do we have a problem when God speaks so directly to us?
What does it say about our expectations?

6. Self-pity!
When I look at Jeremiah I think his self-pity is justified. That’s our problem.
When it’s all said and done – we still have a last line of attack that says,
‘I deserve better than this!’

Talk about self pity.
How does it show itself?
What about when it seems justified?
Why is self pity so destructive?
Where does faith come in?

7. ….. that you may serve me [v19]
The best servants are those who have ‘come back’.
See Luke 15:11-31