You shall have no other gods before me. What does this mean? We should fear, love and trust in God above all things. With these words God begins His moral law, the Ten Commandments. And if we could keep this first commandment we would be able to keep them all. Our problem is, of course, that we cannot even keep this very first one. Indeed, how often it is that we go running after other gods and idols who are not God. On any given Sunday churches across the world, across our nation and even our own church is lacking those who have gone running after other gods failing to be where His gifts are being given out, the Divine Service. Our text for today is God’s Word to the children of Israel through the prophet Jeremiah, but do not think they are not His Word of warning and blessing to us today. Indeed, all God’s Word is His Word to us.
Our text begins with words of warning even words of a curse. “5Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. 6He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land” (v. 5, 6). God, speaking through Jeremiah tells us that cursed is the man who trusts in man. We live in a world where too many people put to much trust in humanity as if humanity is the answer to life. We trust in government. We trust in science. We trust in our own self reliance, as if we can change the world.
God through Jeremiah warns us that cursed is the one whose heart turns away from the Lord. We mistakenly trust the idea that human beings are by nature good. We are told to look inside ourselves for the answer to life’s questions. Indeed, we know that when we look inside ourselves all we find is that we are lost and condemned sinners, unable to save ourselves.
God through Jeremiah warns us that the cursed one is like a shrub in the desert with no water. When we depend on ourselves, when we look inside ourselves all we can see is our sinful human nature. We see that every inclination of our hearts is evil all the time. We see that we are indeed dry to the bone with a lack of the Lord’s blessings even His greatest gift, forgiveness of sins.
God through Jeremiah warns us that the cursed one shall never be satisfied. We live in a world which touts what we call a theology of glory. There are those that preach what itching ears want to hear, that God’s desire is that you have all that you want, that God desires that you are rich, powerful, and famous. Indeed, as the world strives for the things of this world there is no satisfaction. One who chases after the things of this world is chasing after the wind and will never have peace.
But there is good news. God does not leave Israel, nor us wanting. He goes on to speak words of blessing. “7“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. 8He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (V. 7, 8).
God through Jeremiah tells us that blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. The one who trusts in the Lord is the one whose desire is to be given the gifts and blessings the Lord has to give, indeed the one who is blessed is the one who desires, more than anything else, to be where and when the gifts of God are given out, which is what it means to have no other gods, to fear, love and trust in God above all things. The one who is blessed desires to make regular, every Sunday and diligent, as often as possible, use of the means of grace, those means God gives through which He gives all the gifts and blessings He has to give.
God through Jeremiah tells us that the one who is blessed is like a tree planted by water. Indeed, what better place could one plant a tree than by a source of water from which the tree gets life? What better place for a Christian to be planted than to be planted where God gives out His gifts, the place that distributes the means of grace. As King David said, I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Indeed, there is no better place to be planted than to be planted where the means of grace are present and the gifts of God are given out, the Divine Service.
God through Jeremiah tells us that the one who is blessed is not bothered by heat, not anxious about water. Certainly we may understand God’s Word as a glimpse of heaven. Heaven is a wonderful place filled with God’s glory and grace. Heaven is a place of perfection. The older I get the more my thoughts drift heavenward and the joy that awaits. The older I get the faster time seems to be rushing by and I begin to contemplate even more what is important in this world. When we are young we tend to think that time moves rather slowly and that a hundred years is a long time. As we get older we realize that compared to eternity, forever, a hundred years is merely a snap of the finger. And when we realize that heaven is a place of complete and unending joy we begin to realize that there may not be much of what has happened in this world that we will dwell on. Indeed, it is sad that we put so much time and energy, emotion and frustration on the unimportant things of this world and very often to the neglect of what is most important, getting ourselves ready, making sure we are ready and getting others ready for what is most important, our eternal life in heaven where we will not be bothered by heat nor anxious about water.
God through Jeremiah tells us that the one who is blessed does not cease to bear fruit. As you have heard me say many times over the past few weeks, God has called us to and given us life, faith, forgiveness, gifts, talents and abilities, even a job and career. He has given us to be priests in the priesthood of believers so that we live our lives in our vocations as living sacrifices serving Him by serving others. This service is our fruit of faith. As you have heard me say, we do not need to tell people our priorities because we live them. We make time for what is important. Indeed the fruit of our faith is the way we live and how we live, how we use the time, gifts, talents and abilities God gives us. And as God blesses us so we cannot help but bear fruit.
What does this mean? God’s word to the children of Israel through Jeremiah is His warning to us today. His warning is to not trust in ourselves. Because we are conceived and born in sin and because God’s demand is perfection, we have no way of saving ourselves. We must look outside ourselves for our salvation. We must look to Jesus.
God’s warning is to not trust in fallible man. Here again, what can man do. As we look at the history of God’s chosen people, the children of Israel we see a glimpse of our own lives. We see how our lives are lives of ups and down, lives of trusting in God and lives of wavering. Our lives are filled with sin and confession and we rejoice in the absolution God gives. It is because of our sinful nature that we return every Sunday to Divine Service and begin the service confessing our sins so that we might hear the greatest words we can hear, that our sins are forgiven.
God’s warning is to not think we can save ourselves. When we hear the Law and fail to hear the Gospel we have a tendency either to despair or to think we can save ourselves, that is we tend to be self-righteous. It is only as we hear the Gospel, the good news of Jesus’ perfect life for us, in our stead, His taking our sins, His suffering and dying, paying the price for ours sins that we truly understand that He is the One who comes to us from outside us to redeem us, to buy us back to make us right with Himself.
God’s encouragement then is to trust in Him and Him alone. I know my nature. I know that I make mistakes. I know I make wrong choices. I know I cannot depend on myself. But, at the same time I know that God is perfect and holy. I know that God never makes mistakes. I know that God loves me and that I can depend on Him and Him alone. I know that even before He began creating the world God had me in mind. He looked through time and saw me and chose me to be His child. And I know that I can trust and depend on God and God alone.
God promises us gifts and blessings. God loves you so much and He has so much He wants to give to you. God gives His gifts and gives His gifts and gives His gifts. God gives His gifts through the means He has given to give us His gifts, His means of grace. God gives life, physical life at conception. God gives faith and forgiveness through the waters of Holy Baptism. God gives forgiveness of sins through confession and the words of absolution, your sins are forgiven. God gives and strengthens faith through His Holy Word, read and heard. God gives us His body and blood to eat and drink in His Holy Supper so that He becomes a part of us. His life becomes our life. His suffering and death become our suffering and death. His resurrection becomes our resurrection and His eternal life becomes our eternal life.
God’s promise is eternal joy. As I said, heaven is a wonderful place, filled with God’s glory and grace. Heaven is a place of perfect and eternal joy, eternal, forever joy. Thanks be to God, that unworthy though we are, He makes us worthy. He makes us right with Himself. He gives us the promise, the hope, the certainty of the joy of heaven with Him, through His Son.
How is this done? God’s demand is for us to be perfect and we are not and cannot be perfect, so He takes care of that for us. God sent Jesus, God Himself in human flesh and blood to live for us, to take our sins, to suffer hell and die for us and to rise for us defeating sin, death and the devil. Jesus has earned for us and gives us forgiveness of all our sins, once for all. All we can do is to reject that forgiveness and unfortunately time and again people reject and continually reject that forgiveness. Forgiveness is rejected when the means of grace are shunned and rejected. Forgiveness is rejected when we fail to confess our sins thinking we are not sinful or at least not as sinful as the next person. Thanks be to Jesus that His offer and His giving forgiveness is always available, at least until our time on this earth is over. You see, the unforgivable sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit is dying in unbelief, that is dying rejecting the gifts of God. Which is why it is so important that we take the time and make the time to make sure we are lavished with the gifts of God, faith, forgiveness and salvation and that we strive to share the good news with others so they might be saved as well.
How true it is that we get it right when we point to Jesus and just to Jesus. Jesus gives life. Jesus gives new life. Jesus gives forgiveness of sins and eternal life. God loves you so much and He has so much He desires to pour out on you and give to you.
Let me encourage you as Jeremiah, do not trust in man nor in yourself. Trust in God, trust in Jesus. Have a desire to be given the gifts of God through the means He gives His gifts, His means of grace. Know that God loves you so much that He sent His Only Son to live for you and die for you. He makes you right with Himself. And His desire is to continue to pour out on you and lavish you with His gifts, faith, strengthening of faith, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. And He stirs in us to rejoice and say, to Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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