Sermon

October 26, 2003
12th Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Pastor Joel Zank

Lord, Treat Us as Your Children

(Jeremiah 31:7-9) This is what the LORD says: "Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations. Make your praises heard, and say, 'O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.'8 See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return.9 They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back. I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel's father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.

In Christ Jesus, for whose sake alone God regards as his holy people, dear fellow redeemed,
"You're treating me like a child!" says the embarrassed teenager to his pampering parents. "Your treating me like a child!" says the angry wife to her patronizing husband. "You're treating me like a child!" says the frustrated senior to the nursing home attendant. Almost from the time that we learn to walk and talk we want others to stop treating us like children. I suppose that is not necessarily a bad thing, except when it comes to our relationship with God. For unless we are God's children we can have no relationship with him at all-a truth that leads us to offer up the simple prayer that serves as our theme today: LORD, Treat Us as Your Children; First, save us by your power, and, then, comfort us with your Word.

One of the reasons that none of us wants to be treated like a child is that children constantly have others telling them what to do. It is no different with the children of God. Here we find him telling his Old Testament children: "Sing with joy for Jacob..."(Jeremiah 31:7).

Do you remember Jacob from Bible History? His name literally means "the heel-grabber." He got that name because at the time of his birth as a twin, his hand grabbed for his older brother's heel, as if he were trying to pull his brother back so that he instead could be the first-born of Isaac and so enjoy all the rights and privileges that went along with that title. Jacob's selfishness didn't end on his birthday. He spent his youth second guessing the plans God had for him. Eventually he teamed up with his mother Rebekah to deceive his father and cheat his older brother Esau out of that coveted birthright. Their scam was successful, but in the end Jacob had to run away from home to keep from being murdered by his angry brother.

Jacob's life would have ended in misery and disgrace if not for the faithful love of his Father in heaven. The LORD had mercy on Jacob, bringing him to repent of his sins and to trust in God's forgiveness. Over the course of many years, God taught the "heal-grabber" to rely on God's promises rather than on his own deceitful schemes. In the end, God gave Jacob a new name, calling him Israel, that is "One who seeks and obtains God's blessings."

Now with this little bit of Bible history in mind, what reason do you suppose God might have for referring to his people as "Jacob" here in our text? You wouldn't have to spend too much time in the earlier chapters of Jeremiah's prophecy to discover that like their ancestor before them, these people have spent their lives trusting in their own strength rather than God's. In fact, Jeremiah has already warned them that God is about to use the armies of Babylon, their enemy to the north, to destroy everything they hold dear and carry them off into exile. God is about to give these sinful children a timeout, one that will last for seventy years.

So why does God tell them to sing for joy? Because even though they have been unfaithful, God's love for them hasn't wavered. In fact here in our text God still refers to Israel as the foremost of nations (v.7), not because of the great things they had done as a people, but because God had chosen them to be his church. Centuries earlier the God of all grace had told their ancestors, "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession" (Deuteronomy 7:6).

Doesn't it make you envious to hear the LORD say such a thing? Don't you wish he had spoken these words to you and your people? My friends, he has!! In the New Testament Scriptures, God makes it very clear that he had never intended his grace to be for the people of only one race or nation. He explains in Romans 9, "...not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring" (Romans 9:6,8). It is not a person's bloodline that makes him part of Israel, it is his God given faith in Jesus. To all who call on him in faith, to both the Jew and the Gentile, God says in 1 Peter 2:9, "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God." All who believe in Jesus as Savior are the Israel of God.

This means that God has given himself reason to call you and me Israel. But at the same time haven't we given him reason to call us Jacob? Let's be honest. Like our spiritual ancestor by that name, we too are "heel grabbers," constantly reaching for the things we want. It doesn't matter to us that God may not want them for us. Who cares? We've declared our independence. The pursuit of happiness has become our religion, and so in the name of happiness we worship our job and the paycheck it brings us; And when we're not busy working, well, then, we live for those precious moments of rest and relaxation, imagining that they are the solution to all that troubles us.

Just look at us-we imagine ourselves to be all grown up, completely independent. If we need something we just have to work harder for it. If we're too stressed out, we just have to get away more. That's all. We've become so self-sufficient that whether we realize it or not, we've relegated God to the status of forgotten Father. But, friends, that won't do. God refuses to be forgotten; not because his ego won't allow it, but because his children won't survive it. You see, this great desire of ours for independence is a trap set by Satan-a death trap. If Satan gets his way, our hearts will become so far removed from God, that in the day of trouble we either won't think to turn to God for help, or we will be too ashamed to do so, supposing that a God so long ignored would want nothing to do with us.

People, this is the day of trouble. For God declares spiritual independence to be a damning sin and he has found every last one of us guilty of it. Satan has us right where he wants us. We're trapped between the rock of God's anger and the hard place of hell! What should we do? Can you think of some clever means of escape? Should we take a few days off and try to get away? That won't help will it? Nothing we do will help. In fact if we try to solve this problem on our own, we will only make it worse until finally we perish in hell forever.

We're not as independent as we thought. We need the help of our forgotten Father. So we plead with him today, "Please, God, don't treat us as our sins deserve. Instead, LORD, treat us as your children-save us by your power." Will God hear us? Or will he now ignore us? You have your answer right here. The LORD says: "Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations. Make your praises heard, and say, 'O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel'" (Jeremiah 31:7).

What a loving Father we have. He hasn't turned a deaf ear to us. On the contrary! In the midst of our sorrow over sin, he gives us reason to shout and sing, inviting us to always and only turn to him for the help we need each day. Rather than regarding our cries to be saved as bothersome, he receives them as praise, even as he acknowledges us to be the remnant of Israel, that is, the remaining children of God.

Our status as God's children is secure, not by our doing, but by God's-a truth St. Paul confirms in 2 Timothy 2:13, "If we are faithless, [God] will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself." God offers us forgiveness again and again, no matter how often we have strayed. For his love to us is dependant not on what we've been or done, but on the promises he has made, promises he cannot and will not take back. It is this glorious truth that makes us bold to pray, "LORD, treat us as your children and so comfort us with your Word."

My mother takes great delight in reminding me that as a child it would take nothing more than a cookie to make me stop crying. My mother introduced me to comfort food. But it is my Father in heaven who offers me and all of you a far better source of comfort. For he is the one who says, "See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return.9 They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back. I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel's father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son" (Jeremiah 31:8-9).

I mentioned earlier that God's Old Testament people would suffer some painful consequences for their sin. They would be held captive in a land far north of Jerusalem. There God would use their misery to bring them to repentance. Each day God does the same thing in our lives. Our sins often cause us and others hurt and pain. God knows how to use that pain to bring us to our knees in repentance, and after it has served his holy purpose, God alone can relieve that pain. That's the point he makes here in our text. Picture all those repentant Israelites up in Babylon who want nothing more than to be close to God once again. They want to return to God's house in Jerusalem and there live in his presence. But they are helpless to make the trip on their own. They are portrayed here as blind and lame. They are like women in labor unable to travel. But what they, what we, cannot do, God does for us.

When we have sinned, we cannot travel back to God. But then again, we don't have to, because God is pleased to bring us to his side. The road that is impossible for us to travel, he has traveled for us, in the person of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Only perfect people can live in God's presence. God comforts with his Word by using it to assure us that we are his perfect people, perfect not by our own doing, but through Christ who gives us credit not only for the perfect life he lived as our substitute, but also for the sacrifice he made of his life when he gave himself over to hell as the all sufficient payment for our sins. This is our comfort: God will always treat us like his children because as often as he looks at us, he sees his Son Jesus and all that he did to buy us back from our sins.

And here is more comfort, God will keep treating us as his children. Again and again he will use his law to show us our sins till our eyes fill with tears of repentance. Again and again he will teach us to pray for his pardon, and as often as we do, God will bring us along that level path that leads straight to the streams of his gospel where he will always quench our thirst with the sweet tasting waters of his forgiveness. Day after day we can count on the LORD to keep our feet from stumbling into the horrible pit of hell. We can count on him to save and comfort us, not because we deserve his help, but because in his grace he has made himself our Father and regards us as his firstborn son, granting us all the rights and privileges of the same.

When it comes to our relationships here on earth, we may not want to be treated like children. But when it comes to our relationship with God, there's no other way to live. So we will pray, LORD treat us as your children always for Jesus' sake. Amen.

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