Sunday 16th August
Read Jeremiah 4:1-4
“‘If you, Israel, will return,
then return to me,’
declares the Lord.
‘If you put your detestable idols out of my sight
and no longer go astray,
2 and if in a truthful, just and righteous way
you swear, “As surely as the Lord lives,”
then the nations will invoke blessings by him
and in him they will boast.’
3 This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem:
‘Break up your unploughed ground
and do not sow among thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,
circumcise your hearts,
you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire
because of the evil you have done –
burn with no one to quench it.” (NIVUK)
Repentance is not simply ‘praying the prayer’ (Jeremiah 3:22-25). Lip service is of no value – because God had heard it all before (3v10). Just as farming is not as simple as wandering out into a paddock, pulling a few weeds out of the ground, and leaving it at that – so proper preparation is the key to a full harvest.
Recognising that God is holy and that we are sinners is easy compared with the hard work of repentance. It requires a change in how you live and what you put your trust in. Whatever the idols were, they must be banished completely (v1b). Those idols are as unique as you.
Consider the rich young ruler. He lived a moral and upright life but knew something was missing and approached Jesus. Jesus gave him the perfect opportunity to profess a lip-service repentance and faith – which he duly did. Then Jesus gave the same command God gives the people through Jeremiah, ‘That idol in your heart, your wealth, it needs to go’. That is what truth and righteousness looked like for him.
An idol-hardened heart requires serious horsepower to break up! The spreading of a bit of ‘clay-breaker’ won’t do the job. Nor will half-hearted weeding (v3). It requires hard work, and it will be painful. Jeremiah likens it to circumcising your entire body, from the inside! It was too much for the rich young ruler – he walked away sad. He was right to be upset – the consequences of walking away, of a half-hearted job, are dire indeed (v4).
“The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop – some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.’” (Mark 4:14-20) (NIVUK)
