[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen, dear saints of God, we have before us such a marvelous text.
I just want to confess to you that I could not pick one text to preach on, so this is
what I’m going to try today.
I’ve never tried it before, except this morning, and that is I’m going to try to
preach four little mini short sermons.
In fact, this is what we’ll do.
I’m going to give you three words to circle in each text and point out three particular
things from each one so that we can take those home with us.
And I hope that one or two of those catch your attention, and you can spend more time
studying them this week.
So we turn first to the Old Testament.
It’s on page six in your bulletin from Isaiah, from Jeremiah chapter one, the call of Jeremiah.
Beautiful text.
And I want to draw your attention or circle this, the very first phrase here.
Now, the word of the Lord, circle that, the word of the Lord came to me saying, before
I was formed in the womb, I knew you.
Now, I want to ask what you imagine when you hear those words, the word of the Lord.
Here’s what I imagine.
I imagine Jeremiah, an old prophet, although he was a young prophet, but still all the
prophets have gray beards in my imagination, even if they’re 20 years old or whatever.
And he’s sitting there by himself in the desert and he has this sound that comes into his
mind like the Lord is speaking directly into him.
I think this is wrong.
I think we know who the Word of the Lord is.
It’s Jesus.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
The Word became flesh and we saw His glory.
That’s what it says.
So when it says in the Old Testament, the Word of the Lord came to me, why don’t we
imagine Jesus walking up to Jeremiah and telling him these things?
And it’s great to see it because this is what the Old Testament is about, just as well as
the New Testament.
It’s a book of Jesus.
And Jeremiah says, Lord, I don’t know how to speak, I’m only a youth.
But then the Lord says, don’t say I’m only a youth.
Look at verse 8.
Here’s the next word to circle.
people, do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.”
It’s good for us to know that the major enemy of the Lord’s word going forth is fear.
You know, we do a lot in the church and talk a lot in the church about evangelism training
and apologetics training so that we would know what to say in various different circumstances,
instances that we would know how to react and various different questions come up and
all this sort of thing. But I think, at least I’ll just speak for myself, I think that
more often than not knowing what to say is just fear. Fear of what will happen when we
speak the Lord’s Word. Fear of what will happen if we confess Jesus publicly, if we
make it known that we belong to Him. That was certainly Jeremiah’s case. I mean in
In fact, terrible things would happen to Jeremiah.
He would be thrown into prison, into the dungeon, he would be exiled to Egypt and back and dragged
this way and that.
He was the suffering prophet because the Lord set him like a bronze wall to preach against
the people that the Lord was going to come and bring all this destruction.
But the Lord says to Jeremiah and to you and to me, the Lord says, do not be afraid.
Don’t be afraid of what will happen.
The Lord is with us.
And then third, if you want to circle one of the last words there in the last verse
10, the word, to build and to plant.
The Lord put out His hand and He touched Jeremiah’s mouth and He said to him, I’ve put my words
in your mouth, I’ve set you this day over nations and kingdoms to pluck up and break
down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.
Now this is important because one of the misconceptions that a lot of people have about the Bible
is that the Old Testament is law and the New Testament is gospel. The Old Testament is
when God was grumpy and the New Testament is when God is nice. That’s wrong. God is
the one who tears down and the one who builds up in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The prophets as well as the apostles are all sent to preach law and gospel, and we don’t
want to miss it here, that Jeremiah is preaching against the nations to pluck up, to break
down, to destroy and overthrow, but also to build and to plant. That theme, law and gospel,
runs all the way through the Scriptures.
Now to the psalm. It’s the gradual on the next page. It’s actually Psalm 71. It says
Psalm 19 at the top of the page. That was last week’s psalm. It’s Psalm 71 there, and
we have six verses in it. The first word I want to draw your attention to is in verse
three, and that is the word rock. Whenever we read the Psalms, we want to ask the question,
what’s the picture? That’s where the Lord is preaching to us and delivering His gifts
to us. So, for example, Psalm 23 is a beautiful, what’s the picture there? The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. Or the picture in Psalm 46, the Lord is our rock and our fortress,
our strong tower, our castle. And that’s really the picture here also in Psalm 71,
one, that the Lord is our refuge, the Lord is our castle, the Lord is our deliverer,
the Lord is our safety, the Lord is the one who rescues us.
And this means, and this is easy for us to miss, but this means that we need to be rescued.
More on this a little bit later, but one of the things that we notice when we start to
read and pray the Psalms is that they assume that we are in trouble.
No, the Psalms assume that we have enemies.
The Psalms assume that our life, the Christian life, is a life opposed, and it is.
The world and the flesh and the devil are after us.
In fact, we’re going to hear in the synagogue in Capernaum how the demons were even there
in church, tempting us away from the Lord’s Word.
But the Lord is our rock.
The Lord is our refuge.
The Lord is our deliverance.
The Lord is the one who cares for us, point one.
Point two, in verse six, if you can circle this last word of verse six in the line there,
the word birth.
Look at what it says.
This is an astonishing text.
This is one of the best texts of the Old Testament that teaches us that infants can have faith.
In fact, it not only teaches us that infants can have faith, it teaches us that we have
faith even before we’re born.
Remember John the Baptist who leapt in the womb after Elizabeth heard the words of Mary’s
greeting and we have such confidence in that.
But this Psalm 71 verses
5 and 6 tells us that that is in
fact the experience of Christians.
It says, for you,
O Lord, are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Upon you have I leaned
from before my birth, before.
You are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.
The Lord was your Lord,
Lord, your hope, your confidence, even before you were born.”
Imagine that.
I mean, how wonderful.
What wonderful comfort, by the way, for families who have lost children before they were born,
or still born, to know that this does not mean that the Lord has lost them, but that
they belong to Him.
And how wonderful to know that before we can even do anything at all, the Lord chooses
us, just like He formed Jeremiah in the womb, so He has formed us in the womb as well.
It’s a beautiful text.
Second.
Okay, third one from the psalm, and this is actually in the next verse that we didn’t
have in the gradual, so I’ve got to read it to you, but this is kind of an important
one because the psalmist is talking about how God was faithful in His youth, King David
in His youth, but now He says, now I’m old, so you have to be faithful still.
No.
Psalm 71 verse 8 and 9 reads this, my mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory
all the day, do not cast me off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my strength
is spent.
Now this bit of the sermon is not just for the people who qualify as those of old age,
although, although, we need to talk about growing old more because it’s hard.
To you who are older, growing old is hard.
Now you say, pastor, we know.
We’ve been telling you that for years, growing old is hard.
But the young need to hear it as well, because this is something that we often can miss,
right?
And it’s not only just that our bodies wear out as we get older, there’s a spiritual fight
that happens in aging as well, and we should be ready for it.
I was reading about that in this book, Luthart, this old German guy from a couple of centuries
ago and he’s talking about the spiritual dangers of growing old.
Now listen to this, this is an amazing thing.
The complaint most frequently repeated, sorry, the complaint that is most frequently repeated
and the true reason for the sadness, which too often increases with our increasing years,
is not only the ills which are the inevitable result of failing strength. These are only
the lesser sorrows of old age, the body wearing out, the eyes starting to fade, knees aching,
etc., you know. But Luther says this, far bitterer than that are the disappointments,
the misconceptions, the neglects which the aged so often experience. How seldom is even
the most prosperous life followed by a pleasant evening. How difficult it is, how far more
difficult than young people suppose to grow old gracefully. It matters not whether we
had a right to cherish the hopes which we deceived ourselves or not. The complaint is
still the same. Life has not kept its promises.” Wow. I think that’s probably true. You know,
the life that we imagine when we’re young, the way things are going to work out, what
we’re going to accomplish, who we’re going to be, where we’re going to live, what our
families are going to look like, all of these hopes that we sort of cast before us in youth,
how many of them can get to the end of life and have painted the portrait that we sketched
out in our youth?
How full then is life of disappointment?
And there’s a pattern then that shows up even in the Psalms, and it’s something like this,
God, then you were good, but now it seems like you’re gone.
Then you delivered us from Egypt, now you don’t even hear our prayers.
Then you carried us through the Red Sea, now are you even listening?
So the psalmist says, Lord, you were my hope in my youth, my trust from when even I leaned
on you from before I was born, do not cast me off in my old age, forsake me not when my
strength is spent.
Now we, the world, I don’t think the world even thinks about getting old.
The world, you know, decades ago forgot that you have to die and now it’s busy forgetting
that you have to get old.
But we should remember that in the church, that we have to die and that we have to age.
And we should think about it because the Lord gives so many gifts of age.
He gives the gift of wisdom, He gives the gift of insight, He’s all of our lives preparing
us to engage in spiritual warfare.
When we are older we have the gift of authority, especially for our families, if we’re parents
and grandparents and great-grandparents, so that the Lord hears our prayers for those
who are under our authority
that He’s given to us
so that we should rejoice
and honor those
who are older in the church
and delight in those gifts
that the Lord gives
and constantly pray too
that the Lord would not forsake us
that we would grow old gracefully
and we would grow in the wisdom
and knowledge of God.
Psalm 71.
Now to the epistle text.
First Corinthians chapter 12
and verse 13
is a famous verse about love.
I’m going to give you
the first word to circle
example, and that is in verse 2, the very last word, I am nothing. Nothing. Now this
is an amazing thing to see the context of what Paul is preaching. The church in Corinth
had all sorts of spiritual gifts. People could speak in tongues, they could prophesy,
they could perform miracles, they could do all of this sort of stuff, but the result
was two things. First of all, chaos, and second of all, pride. And Paul is going to contrast
in this first section, love with all sorts of amazing things. He said if you could speak
in every tongue, every language of every human being, and even in the language of the angels,
and if you had prophetic power so that you knew the entire future, what was going to happen?
And if you had understanding so profound that you understood every single mystery,
and that you had faith so strong that you could tell the mountain to go and
take a swim, it would go over there into the sea.
Or if you were even to give everything that you owned to the poor, and then to give your
own body to be burned at the stake as a martyr, if you did all of these things, but you didn’t
have love, the result would be nothing.
It would do no good at all.
Now, this is not Paul saying that we shouldn’t have gifts and do these things, but that love
is what motivates and, in fact, gives not only the energy and the direction, but the
blessing of every single gift.
And so we circle in verse 4, love is patient.
Love is what directs our actions, our thoughts, our mind, our heart, our strength.
It’s what directs it away from ourselves, toward God, and toward the neighbor.
So that our thinking, and our desiring, and our acting, and our speaking is not for our
own benefit, but for the benefit of those around us.
That’s what we are called to.
And we know that love takes shape according to the different commandments.
And Paul is not talking about sixth commandment love here, between husband and wife, or fourth
commandment love here, between parents and children, or familial love.
This is probably fifth commandment love.
That means sacrificial love.
love, the love that Jesus is talking about when he says, no one has love like this that
he lays down his life for his friend.
This is the love that goes and serves to its own hurt.
And this is the love that we’re called to.
And this is the love that is the greatest.
That’s the third word I want you to see.
It’s in verse 13.
It says, so now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is
love.
You would have thought that maybe faith would have been the greatest, but that’s not what
Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit says, the greatest is love, and why is that?
Because faith one day will stop.
Hope one day will come to an end.
In the resurrection there’s no more faith and there’s no more hope.
We will have it, all the promises will be fulfilled and we’ll see God face to face
so that faith and hope come to an end but love never ends, never ends.
God is love and when we see Him we will be like Him.
We will be reflecting that love for one another.
So, we begin to love in that hope.
Okay, the gospel.
The first word I want to circle is in verse 38.
And this is a small point, but I think it’s important, we just don’t want to miss it.
It’s the word mother-in-law.
There’s two scenes in the gospel.
The first scene is the synagogue and Jesus goes to the synagogue and He teaches and He
casts out a demon and then He goes to Peter’s house and there in the house is Peter Simon’s
mother-in-law who’s sick, which means the way you get a mother-in-law is by marrying
someone who has a mom, and so Peter was married.
Now again, this is kind of a small point, but this is, we’ve lost this, I think, in
the history of the Church.
There’s been a lot of people in the Church that have separated marriage and ministry
from one another, but certainly it’s not that way in the Scriptures.
Paul says that a husband should be, that a pastor should be the husband of one wife.
life. We know that the Apostles, many of them, had wives and they even traveled with them.
Paul mentions that later. And here we see proof of it, that even Peter had a wife and
a mother-in-law and the family was there, living in the home with them. And so we want
to rejoice that, again, marriage and ministry are not separated from one another. Small
point.
But here’s the real beefy stuff. If you’ll go back to verse 34, I want to circle two
words in the mouth of the demons. The first one is this, I know who you are. There’s
a man with an unclean demon there in the synagogue and when Jesus is teaching, this man stands
up and he says, what are you doing here? I know who you are. You’re the Holy One of
Israel. And then later that night, as Jesus is casting out more and more demons, they’re
crying out saying, you are the Son of God. Now let’s notice this first. Long before the
disciples know who Jesus is, and long before any of the crowd know who Jesus is, the demons
know who Jesus is. They recognize Him as God in the flesh. And, last point, three, they
recognize why He’s there. It’s the word right before it, destroy. Have you come to destroy
us?
Yes, we think of the gospel most of the time as the forgiveness of sins, and it is.
The gospel is that promise of forgiveness.
But the gospel is also an act of destruction.
The gospel is Jesus destroying the devil, and grave, and all that threaten us.
Remember the very first preaching of the gospel, it was in the Garden of Eden, and the Lord
came and he found Adam and Eve hiding with their fig leaves with the devil in the bushes,
And the Lord says to the devil, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between
your seed and her seed, you’ll crush his heel, he will crush your head.
So that the gospel is the cosmic redemption that the Lord Jesus brings to us in his destroying
the devil.
And it happens all at once.
Sin, death, and the devil are like a gigantic hairball of demonic nastiness.
You cannot untie them or untangle them.
Where you have sin, you have death, and where you have death, you have the devil.
They come together against you, but not only do they stand together, they also fall together.
So that if Jesus is forgiving your sins, you will be raised on the last day.
And if you will be raised on the last day, the devil will be cast far from you.
Or let’s say it like this, the absolution is also an exorcism.
Every time your sins are forgiven, the unclean spirits are sent packing.
Because Jesus came not only to bless, but also to destroy.
To destroy the devil, to destroy his kingdom, to destroy his works, to crush his head, to
destroy the fear of death, to destroy the grave, and to rescue you.
so we rejoice that the same Jesus in the synagogue yet in Capernaum was there to
destroy the demons and he still comes to destroy them today this is your God your
rock and your refuge now until the day of the resurrection may God grant us
this confidence in the name of Jesus amen and the peace of God that passes
all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
