PASTOR'S MESSAGE

 

Commit Your Cause to God

Jeremiah 20:7-13 

Canadian mining executive Norbert Reinhart was working in the country of Colombia when he was kidnapped and held as a hostage.  When he was released after three months, he was asked how freedom felt.  Reinhart replied, “It tastes like all the flavors of the world.” 

What a precious gift freedom is and how sweet it is especially after you have been deprived of it for a while.  Perhaps that’s how the prophet Jeremiah felt in our text for today.  For he too had been deprived of his freedom.  You see, Jeremiah had been arrested by the officer in charge of the temple, named Passhur, and then had been beaten and put into the stocks because of his preaching.  He had been proclaiming a word of Law against the people’s idolatrous sins, a prophecy of violence and destruction for them at the hands of the Babylonians.  And that did not set too well with the religious leaders.  So they took Jeremiah into custody and punished him.

You know, there’s a popular game show nowadays called Fear Factor, where they subject the contestants to a variety of horrifying, disgusting and frightening experiences to see if they will reach their breaking point.  Well, apparently Jeremiah had reached his breaking point, because in our text he pours out his heart to God in response to the suffering he had been enduring.  Our text is the sixth and longest of what are known as Jeremiah’s ‘confessions,’ where he reveals the deep struggles of his inmost being in startlingly honest statements to God.  If you will, he confesses his ‘fear factor’ to God.

Dear friends, let me ask you this:  what is your fear factor?  What is your breaking point?  Perhaps you feel that, like Jeremiah, you’ve reached that point in your life right now.  It may be the burden of a secret sin or addiction so overwhelming you don’t know what to do about it.  It might be the weight of an unresolved conflict that you just can’t handle.  It could be the prospect of a serious illness or the loss of a loved one, depression and anxiety over problems in your relationships.  Maybe it’s the frustration of too many bills and not enough money, too many tasks and not enough time, too many demands and not enough energy.

Or like Jeremiah it could be the problem of unjust suffering for the cause of Christ.  In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus exhorts us to acknowledge Him before men.  And yet, when we do so, we often have to pay the price of ridicule and rejection.  If we speak out against things like abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality, we may be accused of being religious zealots.  If we talk to people about Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation, we are viewed as being narrow-minded and bigoted.  If we point out to someone their sin, like living together without marriage, or neglecting to come to church, they may tell us to mind our own business or even curse us to our face.  Truly, such trials and troubles can cause us to reach our breaking point.

It reminds me of the grandmother, who was sitting on the front porch, when a police car pulled up in front of the house, and grandpa got out.  The polite officer explained that the elderly gentleman had said that he was lost in the park and couldn’t find his way home.  “Oh papa,” said grandma, “You’ve been going to that park for over 30 years!  How could you possibly get lost?”  Leaning close to grandma, so that the policeman couldn’t hear, he whispered, “I wasn’t lost mama.  I was just too tired to walk home.”

So often, that’s how it is in life – we grow weary in well-doing, tired of the struggle, worn out from the battle.  And we need someone to give us a lift, someone to pick us up and carry us Home.  Fortunately for us, you and I have just such a someone.  It’s our gracious, loving, Almighty God – our kind, wise Heavenly Father.  On this day when we honor our fathers, how good it is to know that our best father is our Heavenly Father, who loves us even more than our earthly fathers.  And like Jeremiah, we need to commit our cause to Him. 

In our text, when Jeremiah was at his breaking point, he said:  “I hear many whispering, ‘Terror on every side!  Report him! Let’s report him!’  All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, ‘Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.’  But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.  They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten.  O LORD Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you I have committed my cause.”

In other words, when Jeremiah reached his breaking point, he committed his cause to God, and the Lord rescued him.  And my friends, the same is true for you and me.  So often people look to their own resources to bail them out of trouble.  And when that doesn’t work, they give into despair, like the young man this past week, who committed suicide by super-gluing his nose and mouth shut, apparently, because of an argument with his sister over money.  That’s what happens, when we give into our breaking point, instead of committing our cause to God.  That’s why we need to daily commit our cause to God.  And that begins by making confession to Him, like Jeremiah did.  We need to daily confess our sins to God, giving Him all our guilt and shame, and letting Him eliminate it with His free forgiveness and salvation.

As a matter of fact, in our text that phrase, commit your cause, literally means: ‘to uncover it or lay it bear.’  And that’s just what God does, when we confess our sins to Him.  He exposes them for what they truly are – the death of our soul.  He takes all our fears and faults and foibles and lays them bare once and for all, so that they can’t hurt us anymore.  And then He erases them completely, washing them all away in Jesus’ blood.  For you see, Jesus is the mighty warrior that Jeremiah was prophesying about in our text – the One, who makes our enemies sin, death and hell stumble and fall, so that they cannot prevail against us. 

Its’ rather ironic that in our text, it was Jeremiah’s own ‘friends’, who had turned against him,  Well, the only true friend, who will never let us down is our Best Friend, the Friend of sinners, Jesus Christ our Savior.  In fact, the word ‘friend’ in Hebrew actually means: ‘a man of peace.’  And that’s exactly what Jesus is – the One who brought us peace with God, by the remission of all our sins.  As Jeremiah says, Jesus is the One who rescues our life from the hands of the wicked.  And the beautiful thing is that that verb ‘rescue’ means: ‘to snatch away,’ kind like plucking a branch from the fire before it’s consumed,   which is just what Jesus accomplished for us by His death on the cross.  He snatched us out of the fires of death and hell and saved us for all eternity.  That’s why, instead of relying upon ourselves and our own resources, we can confidently commit our cause to God, and know that He will take good care of us.

This past week, I saw a clever sign at Fruitvale Elementary school.  It said:  “There are no elevators to success; you have to take the stairs.”  Of course, it means that in order to succeed in school, you have to work hard.  And while that may be true in school and even in business, it’s not true in our spiritual lives.  If we try to work out our own salvation and take care of our own lives, if we take the stairs of hard work, we’ll only wind up in the basement of hell. 

No, the only way to receive forgiveness, salvation and eternal life is to take the elevator of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, committing our cause to God in repentance and faith, and letting Him lift us up and carry us Home.  And that’s just what He gladly longs and loves to do for us in the Word and in the Sacraments.  I like the way Rev. Deane Schuessler puts it:  “Take out your spiritual ‘certificate of deposit,’ your baptismal certificate, and rest secure. Rub your hands over the campfire of God’s Word, that blessed fire, and be warmed, as you receive the sacrament of Christ’s true body and blood to strengthen your faith.”  In other words, as we daily renew our Baptism in confession and absolution, as we frequently partake of Christ’s body and blood for forgiveness, as regularly read and study God’s Holy Word, that’s how we can commit our cause to God. 

Recently I read about a man from Kansas, who was severely injured in an explosion, losing both hands and his eyesight. He had become a Christian only a short time before the explosion, and one of his great disappointments was that now he couldn’t read the Bible.  Then he heard of a woman in England who read the Braille Bible with her lips.  So he ordered some Braille Bible books and tried it.  But the nerves of his lips were too badly damaged, and he couldn’t distinguish the characters clearly.  In his useless efforts, however, his tongue happened to touch a few raised characters, and he could feel and read them.  “I can read the Bible with my tongue!” he said, and so he does, eagerly and regularly.

Like Jeremiah, that man had a passion for God’s Word.  As our text says, it was like a fire burning in his heart.  May God the Holy Spirit fill us with that same kind of burning passion, as we daily commit our cause to God, by reading and studying His Word and making regular use of the Sacraments.  For then we too will be empowered to share His Word with others and acknowledge Him before men, for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.  

   

 

 

         

                                                 

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