Jeremiah, Week 25: Judgment and the Grace of God - Sermon

Number one, the first thing I believe we learn here, friends, is this. It is that unrepentant appeals to the Lord will not alter his impending judgment. Unrepentant appeals to the lord will not alter his impending judgment. So if you've been here at all, and as some of you may be new, but God had already repeatedly pronounced judgment, warned Judah of the judgment to come for their wickedness and for their idolatry. And now they were under siege and experiencing that very judgment from Babylon. [00:07:15] (40 seconds)  #WarningsDontEqualRepentance

Friends, what Zedekiah learned was simply that unrepentant appeals to the Lord will not alter his impending judgment. Just calling out to God with no remorse, with no repentance, friends, does not obligate God to rescue you. How often in our world today do people say, well, I called out to God to help me and he was nowhere around. Oh, God, help me. Get me out of this situation, people say, but they fail to own what they did to get them in the situation in the first place. How often do many people expect God to wave a magic wand to rescue them and have no intentions of doing anything different in the future? [00:21:45] (51 seconds)  #NoRepentNoRescue

and and listen, God's grace is real. Amen. We'll talk about that more here in just a minute. But how many in our world today have become so familiar with God's grace? God is love. And friends, yes, he is. But we need to understand the fullness of what he is. But they've become so familiar with God's grace that they expect God to forgive them without any repentance or recognition of Christ's sacrifice. They just expect God to do it because he's a good God and they think they deserve it. Now, not all people think that way, but many do. But that's not how it works. Amen? We cannot presume upon God's grace. [00:22:38] (46 seconds)  #DontPresumeGrace

and it's really how God's grace does work. In this life, God does offer a way out, friends. He does offer a way of faith. Even in the situation in which we just read in Jeremiah chapter 21, in which God has pronounced awful judgment on Judah and the city and the people of Judah. [00:23:28] (29 seconds)  #GraceFindsAWay

God is very clear that judgment is coming to Jerusalem, and the only way they could save themselves is to believe that that destruction was coming. To not as their prophets so their prophets would tell them even though they were not following their say, listen, you're gonna be delivered. No. God's gonna save you and you're gonna get out of this and God's not gonna allow this to happen. While at the very same time, God was saying through his one and only prophet Jeremiah, he was saying, no. I'm bringing judgment. And so they first of all had to believe Jeremiah instead of all their false prophets. [00:25:30] (37 seconds)  #BelieveTheProphet

here was the hard part for them. The hard part was this would have seemed contrary to everything they knew. God think about this. God had given them this land. Right? It was the promise we call it the promised land because God had promised it to them. He had promised it to their fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, which they were. [00:26:35] (28 seconds)  #FaithWhenPromisesFail

See what God can do, but here's the deal. They had to trust God with with what he was telling them in the moment. They had to believe him and they had to believe Jeremiah even though all God said to him, this is all they had to believe was, if you will defect to the Babylonians, you will be saved. You will live. Friends, here's the deal. The response that require the the response required by faith often doesn't make sense to us logically. It isn't always reasonable by human logic. [00:29:18] (41 seconds)  #TrustGodsStrangeWay

``Friends, in that despite our sin, he offers us a way out. He offers us a way of faith through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen? Amen. He sent his son Jesus to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins so that we wouldn't have to and to rise again to give us new life. Friends, we must simply either accept his wonderful mercy and grace poured out on the cross for us by professing him as savior and lord of our life, or we get what we deserve. That's more than fair if you ask me. Because here's the deal, and many people think, well, you know, I I I've been a pretty good person. I I don't think I really sin that much. Friends, your sin will find you out. You will get what you deserve. You cannot hide from God. [00:39:24] (59 seconds)  #MercyThroughChrist