“Our Quest for the Best”

(Your Life is only as Good as your Worship)

INTRODUCTION:

Bumper Sticker – Septic Tank Service Truck - #1 in #2 Business
Continue – Jeremiah – seek to be #1 in business of life – sometimes looks like, smells like, Septic Service Truck.

In Jeremiah’s Quest – he has shown
1) Radical faith – to run w/horses, to do impossible
2) power of personal relationship w/God
3) uniqueness of high calling by which we’ve been called
Today, our Quest brings us – Chapter 7 where Jeremiah reveals to us – fact – our lives are only as good as our worship. Any quest requires a holy devotion in all of life.

First 20 verses of Ch. 7 are easily divided into 3 simple sections
Vs 1-2 – The Word of the Lord
Vs 3-11 – The Worship of the Lord Our Theme – “our lives are only as
Vs 12-20 – The Wrath of the Lord good as our worship.”

I. The Word of the Lord
A. Thru Jeremiah (1)
1) Placed in Jeremiah’s mouth, 1:9
2) Have been coming out, Ch. 2 on, as a message to Israel from God
3) God continues – communicate with, challenge his people, call to Himself
B. At the temple gate (2)
1) Historians – 7 gates to temple (plural vs. 2)
2) Place where many would hear – coming/going all hours of day, not Sabbath only
C. To the worshippers of the Lord (2)
1) Out of a time frame – spiritually speaking – no one is #1 in #2 business, no one is even #2, 3, or 4!
2) These worshippers – out of Manasseh’s reign and Josiah’s reform
a) Manasseh’s reign – period unparalleled corruption
1) 55 years ½ century of evil paganism
2) Described by commentators –
(Manasseh’s) capacity for inventing new forms of evil – bottomless; appetite for the sordid was insatiable; enslaved the people to witchcraft and magic at hand of imported wizards and sorcerers; lust and greed were the new gods; murders were more common than in Dallas.

Manasseh dragged the people into a mire far more stinking than anything the world had yet seen.

Shortly after Manasseh’s reign –
b) Josiah, boy king – period of unparalleled reform
1) Wanted things to be different
2) Neither family background nor evil environment had snuffed out his desire for change
3) How could he begin to clean up this garbage dump, cesspool called Jerusalem?
4) Started w/temple and Lo! And behold! – Word of God was found.
5) Here was a guide for Josiah’s reform, a way of worship, a way of life, certainty to do what was right and wrong.
6) Reform began – 57 year of muck, sludge, corruption all shoveled out of the land.

John Bright – A History of Israel = “never had there been a reform so sweeping in its aims and so consistent in execution.”

7) 2 Kings 23:25 – “neither before nor after Josiah…”

SO – Word of God, - thru Jeremiah
At the gate of the temple
Comes to worshippers who have know the terrors of Manasseh and thru the Word of God found the reforms of Josiah.

(Pause to Reflect)
God still desires to speak to worshippers today thru His word in a world so desperately corrupt
From Bennie May – At the close of the service the minister took the Bible and tore out a bunch of pages, distributing them among the believers. Everyone went home with one page of God’s Word – the only Christian reading material most of them had ever seen. Several days later two of the believers met. One was beaming. “I have received a very special page from the Bible.” “What was it?” “It is a page from Jeremiah.” “Why is it any more special than my page from Matthew?” “Because,” the first man said, “my page says, ‘And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.’ If the word of the Lord could come to Jeremiah, then I know God will speak to me also.”

From Dr. Dobson following his heart surgery – “I had enjoyed perfect peace through the 10-day ordeal, despite the discomfort imposed by such an illness. The presence of the Lord was very real to me, and I leaned heavily upon the volume of prayer being expressed on my behalf. However, that confidence suddenly unraveled on the day before I was to be discharged. A disturbing medical report was received rather unexpectedly, catching me off guard. It looked like I had additional problems not yet identified. We learned 10 hours later that it was a false alarm, but at the time, there was nothing I could do but lie there and contemplate the possibilities. I couldn’t even call Shirley because I didn’t want to alarm her before the information was confirmed. That’s when I uttered a brief and ineloquent prayer from the depths of my soul. I said, “Lord, you know where I am right now. And you know that I am upset and very lonely. Would you send someone who can help me?” A short time later, my good friend Dr. Jack Hayford walked through the door. We greeted each other warmly, and then I said, “Jack, your church is on the other side of Los Angeles. Why did you take the time to come see me today?” I’ll never forget his reply. He said, “Because the Lord told me you were lonely.”

God desires that our lives be good because our worship is good! The Word of God is our guide. He still speaks today. Heb. 3, 4

(So, the Word of God is proclaimed by Jeremiah to worshippers passing thru the temple gates). In our second section, notice the nature of that worship as seen thru God’s eyes and Judah’s need for more reform.

II. Worship of the Lord (3-11)
A. Its Nature
1) Mostly words – (4) (8)
a) Reform was successful – on the outside
b) Streets were safer, false religion was outlawed, wrong kinds of worship were forbidden
c) But the reform was only skin deep – one writer = “Everything had changed, but nothing had changed” “outward changes – enormous; inward – imperceptible”
d) Deuteronomy – best seller! Everyone going to church!
2) Mostly repetition and deception
a) People were going to the right place (temple)
b) People were saying the right words (“This is the temple of the Lord”)
c) But they themselves were not right!!!

Eugene Peterson - Places are important – immensely important. Sites and buildings are places where we gather ourselves for fresh action and assemble ourselves for new endeavor. But standing in a church singing a hymn doesn’t make us holy any more than standing in a barn and neighing makes us a horse.
And words are important – immensely important. What we say and the way we say it expresses what is most personal and intimate in us. But mindlessly repeating holy words no more creates a relationship than saying “I love you” twenty times a day makes us skilled lovers.

(worship of the Lord is in)

B. Need of Reform – read vs. 5, 6, 9, 10, 11
1) Words were right
2) Place was right
Religious masks were well-fitted, people behind the masks were needing to change the way they hold.

(hope you are beginning to understand our point this AM – our life is only as good as our worship)
3) At heart, these people were yet “robbers.” Vs. 11 den for robbers = a place to retreat to after raiding parties upon the weak and unsuspecting.
4) Jeremiah’s audience – spending the week living for selves, taking advantage of others, being angry at those who don’t think your plan is tops, scheming to deceive, defraud, honoring other gods (materialism, wanting to have more and more; busyness); being the truth to their advantage; maybe even committing adultery, stealing, murdering (if not a person, perhaps their reputation or character) and then retreating to their “den” – going to church, being friendly, singing the songs, giving the offerings, etc. etc.

C. Way of Reform
1) 2:2,3
2) 3:12, 13
3) 4:1,2
4) 6:16 . . . WALK in it . . .

(Pause to reflect – It’s a lot easier to say the right things and be in the right places than it is to do the right things. Going to church once a week and dropping a $5 or $19 in the offering plate is so much easier than
Loving the one you work with or
Writing a congressman about abortion issues or
Boycotting a sponsor of bad television
But life in only as good as one’s worship – real devotion to God walking in the ancient paths.)

3rd and Final Section
(The 1)Word of the Lord has come thru Jeremiah at the gate to the worshippers and 2) the Worship of the Lord has been defined and correction has been proclaimed)

III. The Wrath of the Lord vs. 12-20
A. God is watching (11b)
Remember vision of almond branch?

B. Heed a warning – take a field trip to Shiloh
Shiloh was one of the most famous holy places in Hebrew history. Located at the center of the country, it had been the earliest focus for worship and consultation in Israel. When Joshua brought the people into the land after their deliverance from Egypt and forty years of wilderness wandering, Shiloh was where they assembled, set up the tabernacle and divided up the land among the twelve tribes. The revered ark of the covenant was kept at Shiloh. The great prophet Samuel spoke his words of counsel there. Shiloh was a magnificent beginning. Shiloh was a glorious image. But all Shiloh was now was a few piles of rocks in a field of weeds, as every traveler from Galilee to Jerusalem could see. Shiloh was the right place; at Shiloh the right words were spoken. But when the right place no longer launched a walk with God and when the right words no longer expressed love and faith, Shiloh was destroyed. If it could happen to Shiloh, it can happen to Jerusalem – and any other place where people gather to worship God.

C. God may withdraw – vs. 20

(Pause to reflect – God is still in the business of chastening, disciplining, correcting, purifying. If we call Him our God and our life is not good because our worship is not good – we stand in the place of correction/discipline/judgment).

CONCLUSION:

Worship is so much more than what happens here Sunday AM! Our Quest for the Best involves worship that is expressed in deed. Then Life is good because our worship is good.

The Word of the Lord came
Defining worship as it should be
Carrying a warning re: wrath of God
Because God desires we live well –
Foundation of good living is good worship


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