Jeremiah 2: ‘I Remember You’ Oct 09
Thesis: God remembers our devotion.
Introduction: I remember hearing the sad story of a young man who climbed mountains, swam rivers, rowed over oceans and crossed deserts to prove his love to his girl, and when he returned home she had already married someone else. Saying you love someone is one thing, doing it is another.
To say we love God is one thing, to live it is another. Israel had at one time loved God and followed the Lord, but now their love had begun to decrease. Their passion was fading.
What about your relationship to God? Is your passion for Christ fading? What do we do when we find this is happening in our lives? Lets take a look together at what the prophet Jeremiah had to say to those ancient people whose love had faded.
I. The Courtship
Do you remember your courtship? Remember how sweet it was when you first started dating? Remember how he would buy you gifts and take you out and you would flutter your eyes and smile so sweetly? I know some of you haven’t yet made it to the point of courting the one your going to marry so I just want you to know you have a lot to look forward to.
God calls to the people of Israel’s mind a time when they had a relationship much like a courtship. They were to remember a time when God was taking them places and they were so in love with Him they followed Him wherever He led. They were to recall a time in their relationship with God when they were devoted to the Lord, God was first in their lives, and the Lord was their protector.
A. They were to remember where God brought them from.
1. He brought them up out of Egypt. That means God delivered them from being enslaved.
It seems some people would rather be enslaved than be free. Numbers 11:5 recounts the sad plea, ‘We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:’ They didn’t eat for free in Egypt, they were in bondage. They had a faulty memory. For some reason they couldn’t remember the taskmasters and laboring over making the bricks. They didn’t remember the bitterness. They didn’t remember the tears or the fears they lived with.
It is too often that way with us. For some inexplicable reason we forget the sorrow sin brings. We begin to toy with it. We begin to think that we wont have any problems. We somehow convince ourselves that bad things only happen to other people.
I Cor. 10 tells us, ‘Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon who the end of the worlds have come.’ When we read the OT and the account of the children of Israel and the mistakes they made, we need to understand that those things were written to help us avoid the same mistakes. Sadly we are too often like the child who rebels against the parents even though the parent has poured his or heart out and told the child from personal experience the pain of some bad decisions.
God calls us to remember the love we once had. We are reminded of Jesus words to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 3. The Lord says to the church, ‘Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.’ Have you left your first love?
Some 30 years before John penned this letter to the church at Ephesus, the Apostle Paul had written the same church and commended them for their love for all the saints. What had happened to them in those 30 years that caused them to leave their first love?
God remembers what you were like when you first gave your life to the Lord Jesus. What has happened to you to cause your passion for Christ to dwindle, diminish or die?
II. The Change
We also see the Lord ask a question of the Israelites. He ask, ‘What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone so far from me.’ The question God is asking is what has He done, if anything, to cause them to walk away from Him. The question assumes, because the Israelites had abandoned God, He must have done some injustice to them. I wonder the same thing about us. What has God done to so many who have seemingly abandoned Him and ceased to love Him.
Lets think about what God has done?
A. He delivers from bondage. He had delivered the Israelites from bondage. How awful of God to hear the cries of His people and act to deliver them from bondage. Who could imagine such a thing? God is terrible isn’t He?
If you have left your first love and wandered far from God, what is it that God has done to cause you to stop you from following Him. One of the terrible things He has done is to deliver you from sin. Its just unbelievable that God would give His Son for you on the cross. How could God act like that? How could God give His Son to suffer and die in your place?
Another horrible thing God has done is to give you His Spirit to abide in you till either you go to home to heaven or He comes for you. He has preserved His word through the ages so that we might read of His grace and mercy.
What an injustice God has performed to deliver us from the ravages of sin.
B. God has provided every resource we need. Now if there ever was a reason for a man or woman to abandon God, its because of the blessings He pours out upon us. What does God do for us? He leads us through the difficult places in life. He makes provision for us throughout our journey with Him. When we think of verses like Phil 4:19 which says, ‘And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.’, how could we not walk away from the serving the Lord. What about Psalm 23 which proclaims ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.’ Doesn’t that Psalm just make you want to hate the Lord? How could God love us so much. Its not fair! Its not fair especially when we consider that it is through the blood of Jesus Christ that we are washed from our sins. Eph. 1:7 says, ‘In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.’ Wow. God is really unjust toward us isn’t He?
III. The Charges
We know of course God isn’t unjust toward us. Every relationship will go through changes. Even our relationship with the Lord can go through changes. The thing we must guard against is changing gods.
If you are in a backslidden condition, the problem doesn’t lie with the Lord. The problem lies with you. You have….
A. You have changed gods. The problem with some people is they have traded gods. They have exchanged the one true and living God for a lie. You might ask is that possible? It is according to Scripture. Verse 11 asked a stirring question; ‘Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? None of the pagan nations around the people of Israel were giving up their gods for the God of Israel. None of their gods had delivered them from bondage. None of those gods had lead them through the wilderness all the while providing every need. Not one of those gods had given the people a promised land and delivered on that promise, yet they were abandoning the God that had brought them to that place.
In the NT book of Galatians, this warning is given to the church. The Bible says in chapter 1:6, ‘I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.’
No God but the God of the Bible can save you. No God but the God of the Bible loves. There is no god but the God revealed on the pages of Scripture. If you have abandoned the Lord, it is time to return to the Lord.
B. You will be cheated by false gods. Your false god may not be some wooden statue or religious relic, but a false god made out of anything is still a false god. It might be a false god of alcohol or drugs. It may be a false god of sex or money. It may be a false god of self importance, a relationship or even religion. Whatever kind of false god you put false hope is like trying to fill a broken cistern, it will not hold water. (13) False gods will cheat you out of your spiritual life.
God remembers your vows. God remembers your devotion. You might even have at one time promised God you would never turn away, but gradually over time you have allowed other things to become more important to you than a right relationship with God.
Do you sense a need to return to the God you served when you were first saved? Has the Lord Jesus been wooing you through His Holy Spirit to come home to devotion and fellowship with Him?
