Dealers in Hope - Neil Ryan
June 8th, 2008 by sound
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Date: June 8, 2008
Passage: Jeremiah 32:6-17
Message: Dealers in Hope
Series: Reality Bites
Weren’t you on the edge of your seats while I was reading this passage! Sometimes we think that every time we read the Bible the hairs on the back of our neck ought to stand up!
But when you read about who begat who, and what to do when you break out in boils or when your ox falls into a hole or who brought what to the Temple on the day of dedication – it doesn’t do much!
All Scripture is inspired but not all scripture is equally inspiring!
The bulk of this passage is right up there with filling out your tax return or re-writing Church By-Laws or attending a lecture on the subtle differences between micro and macro economics between 1940 and 1963!
Jeremiah could have said, “The Lord said, buy some land and I did!” But instead we get all the excruciating detail of a land transaction that happened 2600 years ago.
We read how he weighed the money, signed the deed, sealed the deed, got witnesses to deed and then put the deed in BC equivalent of a safety deposit box – earthenware vase!
Thankfully, this whole passage is rescued by that famous verse little further on …..Jeremiah 32:27
I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?
What is going on here?
Why are you going to be surprised when I tell you this laborious account is one of my favorite passages in the OT?
This is not just about a property sale!
This is about a vision that God has for his people 70 years down the track!
v1 tells us that settlement on Jeremiah’s property took place in the tenth year of King Zedekiah, king of Judah. That may be more trivia to you, but it places these events in 587BC, the year the army of the King of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem [Jer 32:2]
Within a matter of months Jerusalem would be in ruins.
Within no time the land would be desolate.
Before long the bottom was going to fall out of the housing market.
The land was under siege!
Here’s Jeremiah buying up property!!
This looks like one of the worst investments in real estate history.
I love the way this all happens.
Read v6
God tells Jeremiah that Hanamel is going to come along and ask him to buy the family farm!
Good old Cousin Hanamel!!.....Don’t you just love him!
He’s one of the great bwheeler-dealers of the OT.
There’s someone like this in every family!
They’d sell their mother if they could get the right price.
Hanamel is no fool.
He can read the real estate guide.
He knows what’s coming.
So he comes to Jeremiah and makes him the offer of a life time.
I think you should buy the farm!!
Never forget this name – there is a lot of Hanamel in all of us!
Who does want to get out while the going’s good?
Shake the dust of my feet; abandon commitment; grab what we can; sell the land; change my name to Hanamel Ryan, Hanamel Jones, Hanamel Smith. Let’s all embrace
Hanemal-ism.
Think of the Church.
Who will join all the crowd of the last 20 years as they jump ship.
Sure it’s listing.
It’s in trouble.
Time to bail.
Time to cut the commitments to lost cause.
Who wants to stay on board in days when the value of the Church is plummeting!
There are Hanamel’s everywhere who will sell up while they can even if it means leaving brother’s or sisters to carry the can!
You know what?
Whilst I am tempted to be a Hanamel I aspire to be a Jeremiah!!
This was a man who was not only able to preach outrageous things he was willing to do outrageous things.
I know in my own life that this outrageous gospel is not always matched by an outrageous life!
My talking about it is much more colourful than the doing of it!!
But I don’t aspire just to have a passion for a concept, or a belief or a theology but to see what it looks life in life!!
God told Jeremiah to invest in land while the Babylonians were rumbling on the outskirts!
The first 3 rules of Real Estate are….
Location, Location, Location!
Value of a property fluctuated according to what’s happening around it.
I have a house at Morphetville that would escalate in value if I could transplant it on the bowling green across the road here!!
All about location!
Right now there were Babylonians standing at the gate to the farm and God say to Jeremiah.
Buy it!!!
Stop for a minute.
Are you with Hanamel or Jeremiah?
What do you see in that plot of land?
What do you see in the Church?
What do you see down the track?
I say again that while part of me wants to EMBRACE Hanamelism, but I ASPIRE to be like Jeremiah.
To not only speak the Word but risk living it.
To see a future where others can only see a past.
And in the midst of a Church in 21st Century that so often appears to be on the verge of losing its way I aspire to be a risk taking, field purchasing, gospel believing man who sees a hope for my grand children’s children in the very place where it would be so easy to sell out!!
Read Jeremiah 32:15
Jeremiah buys the farm and in doing so he says
I purchase this land, not as a smart real estate investment, no, I purchase this land because my hope in God is unshakable. We shall live again in this place!
Jerusalem will yet thrive under the hand of the living God!
Can you see how this painfully boring passage throbs with life when we see what is really happening?
Can you see the implication in this day of ours?
Don’t miss it!!
What kind of vision do you have for this city of Adelaide?
Do we just look back with everybody else and talk about the city of Churches that has now become night clubs and restaurants?
Do we just lament in the decline in the Church as inevitable in a post modern world?
What kind of vision do we have for UPBC?
Are we just happy to be surviving where others seem to be falling?
Is Hanamelism knocking on our door – while we may not be prepared to jump ship, we keep our distance and reserve our right to bail out at a moments notice!!
Jeremiah bought a farm because God promised to do something with them in 70 years time.
What investments are we making in the Kingdom of God that will still make a difference in 2078?
We are talking about renovations that are about the future of this Church.
They are about saying to our world that God is doing something here and we are in it for the long haul.
I can see Hanamel coming!!
Count me out!
I want to see it before I commit to it!
I’m only passing through, I don’t want a financial burden, I just want what the Church can give me today!!
God is saying – commit to the future!
Houses, field and vineyards will again be bought in this land
I want this place to flourish again and again!
We are talking about a Church Plant.
Do you know one of the common responses we are getting…
We understand the need for it and we support it but we just can’t see it happening at UPBC!
Hanemalism is alive and well!
Hanemal couldn’t see how his land would be worth anything within months let alone years.
All he could do was offload his responsibility and say “all the best” to Jeremiah!
Jeremiah bought real estate at the worst possible time in the worst possible location.
He drove a stake called HOPE right in the ground of that old farm and said – this is God’s ground!!!!
We can spend our days bemoaning what’s happened to the Church.
We can identify where it’s all gone wrong.
We can speak about the impact of globalization,
the rise of militant Islam,
the power of the media
the spread of secularism,
the appeal of philosophical mysticism,
the seduction of materialism,
the saturation of knowledge and technology,
the loss of innocence and the absence of morality
All these things are making such a din in our heads that we miss the call of God
Buy up the land
Invest in the future
Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land…..
Funny thing about this passage!
This sale is made public and every boring detail is recorded, so that no one would ever forget – the transaction?
No! They would never forget how God forged a future out of nothing!!
Can you see the gospel in all this?
God sees our ruin, our pride, our pain, our confusion, our pathetic attempts to be like God –
He invites us to bring them to the Cross.
That’s where God invested in our future.
People looked at Jesus and mocked
Hail King of the Jews….He saved others, He cannot save himself…..
Even the disciples were overcome with Hanamelism – they cut there losses and ran!
But three days later Jesus rose from the dead
God says to us
I have plans for you….beginning now they will stretch into the whole of eternity
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love him [1 Corinthians 2:9]
Folks this is not about the power of positive thinking.
Christians are realists!
We don’t pretend things are better than they are.
We acknowledge the reality of the world we live in, our own frailties, sense of mystery…..
We know our prayers are not always answered the way we ask
We know that we are not immune from tragedy.
We know life often seems unfair, unreasonable and inexplicable
But towering about all this is the reality of HOPE.
It runs all the way through Scripture.
From the moment Adam and Eve sinned and God set out to redeem them, right through to the book of Revelation which concludes with the great words Amen. Come Lord Jesus [Rev 22:20], the Bible is a book of HOPE!
It compels us to live.
It inspires us to confront what seems to be hopeless.
It refuses to throw up its hands and say,
Its all too hard, who am I to make any difference?
It calls us to invest in the future.
Jeremiah bought a property that his cousin wanted to sell
Jesus died and rose from the dead for people like us who didn’t deserve it
God makes this preposterous offer of HOPE!
I like what Napoleon Bonaparte once said:
“Leaders are always dealers in hope.”
How much more so Christians?
Discussion Questions
1. All Scripture is inspired but not all scripture is equally inspiring!
Discuss.
Why does the Bible have so much detail about things that seen so irrelevant to people like us?
Discuss how you read the Bible.
Eg. Genesis to Revelation; With help of Devotional Book; Passage from OT and from NT etc.
2. Read Jeremiah 32:1-2; 6-9
Babylonian soldiers were at the gates of Jerusalem and God tells Jeremiah to buy some property.
What is unusual about that?
Discuss other examples in the Bible where God asked someone to do something unusual.
What does God require of us that some might think is strange?
Can you share a time when you just knew you should do something even though it seemed a bit odd?
3. Read v6-8
Hanamel – Never forget this name.
There is some Hanamel in all of us.
The need for self preservation; the temptation to get out while the going is good; to jump ship; to leave the farm and all its debt to someone else; to look out for our own interests first.
Hanamelites!
Discuss the temptation to be a Hanamelite!
How does this impact the Church?
What does Hanemalism look like today?
4. Read Jeremiah 32:15
Jeremiah bought a farm because God promised to do something with them in 70 years time.
In the midst of a Church in 21st Century that so often appears to be on the verge of losing its way I aspire to be a risk taking, field purchasing, gospel believing man who sees a hope for my grand children’s children in the very place where it would be so easy to sell out!!
Discuss.
It might all sound like wishful thinking but what can we do that will give future generations the best opportunity to be part of a vibrant Church?
What do you think the Church will look like in 70 years time?
Why?
5. Jeremiah was called to make an investment in the future.
How have previous generations invested in UPBC for our benefit?
How does this passage impact our attitude to –
Church Renovations
Church Plant
What do you say to statements like–
We should be spending money on mission not buildings…
We shouldn’t go into debt in uncertain times like this…
A Church Plant is a good idea but I can’t see it happening at UPBC…
We’re OK the way we are….
6. We can spend our days bemoaning what’s happened to the Church.
We can identify where it’s all gone wrong.
We can speak about the impact of globalization,
the rise of militant Islam,
the power of the media
the spread of secularism,
the appeal of philosophical mysticism,
the seduction of materialism,
the saturation of knowledge and technology,
the loss of innocence and the absence of morality
All these things are making such a din in our heads that we miss the call of God
Buy up the land
Invest in the future
Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land…..
Discuss
Have we become experts in what is wrong that we are not motivated by what is right?
Have we identified all the problems of our Post Modern era but have little heart for any solutions?
Are we satisfied with excuses for the Church not being what it should and could be?
7. This whole story of Jeremiah buying property is a story about HOPE.
It is grounded in the hope of what God will do.
Hope is the constant theme right through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation
Discuss.
Give examples of people in the Bible that lived in the reality of hope.
8. The Cross is the place where God invested in our future.
Discuss
Christians are realists!
We don’t pretend things are better than they are.
We acknowledge the reality of the world we live in, our own frailties, sense of mystery…..
We know our prayers are not always answered the way we ask
We know that we are not immune from tragedy.
We know life often seems unfair, unreasonable and inexplicable
How does the Cross impact this kind of reality?
9. Read Jeremiah 32:27
What does this have to say to us today in the light of the context in which it was given?