Jeremiah 23:1-6
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. To the prophet Amos comes during a busy time in the Old Testament story. Amos is a prophet of judgment against the northern kingdom of Israel, and understand what's happening in our story, we need to understand some history. So we're gonna go back all the way to King David. So you know, King David, he was the one to basically unite the kingdoms, kingdom of Israel, all 12 tribes, and finally conquer the area that was supposed to be the promised land. He brings it all together under his rule. And then when his son Solomon takes over the kingdom, Solomon begins the long line of kings that start to stray away from God and His promises of Solomon, because of this gets judgment from God, that when his son takes the throne, God is going to split the kingdom into two, there will be the two tribes of the South, and the 10 tribes of the North, the North becomes Israel, and the South is called Judah. This happens under Solomon son, Rafa Boehm, a Prophet goes to another man named Jeroboam, who was promised that if he follows God and His promises and keeps his law, he will get the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom for him and for his family. So, Jeroboam rebels, the 10 tribes go their own way Rehoboam in the south, Jeroboam in the north. And then Jeroboam says, you know, it's not a great idea for me to send all of my people down to Jerusalem, to worship, because they're all going to someone else's kingdom. It's not mine. So against God's law, he builds to sanctuaries. The one that's important for us is the city of Bethel, where the king's sanctuary is, and the priest Amaziah. Comes out against Amos. During this time, King Uzziah comes to power in the south, and we get several prophets. Amos is the one that we are looking at. He is likely around 750 or 760 BC. It's about the same time as Jonah, who goes out to the city of Nineveh, capital city of a Syria, the ones who will be the big bad guys very soon. And then only a little while later is the prophet Isaiah, who comes shortly after Amos after uzawa in Judah dies. And so we what we get are prophets, Amos to the northern kingdom, Isaiah to the southern kingdom, and Jonah to Nineveh or a Syria, who would soon come in and destroy the northern kingdom of Israel, kill off Jeroboam xline, and take them into exile. Those are the characters of our day. Amos, the prophet actually comes from the southern kingdom, a city of Tekoa, which is just on the other side of the border, which means that when he comes into this northern kingdom, he is an outsider. He is from Judah. It's almost like an enemy Prophet, coming into your territory. And that is the situation we get when we get to the beginning of our reading. Amos has been coming out with Oracle's against everybody. But in this chapter, he is now starting to speak to Israel to the northern kingdom. And what I'd like to do today is contrast his message to Israel and the results with Jonah, who goes to a foreign kingdom in Nineveh With a similar message, and different results. So let's look at Amos first. And then we'll look at Jonah. Amos goes to this northern kingdom. And he gives them a message. God says, Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel, and I will never again pass by them, the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. Now, if you are like me, and have never built a single thing in your life, you read the words plumb line, and you go, Hmm, I wonder what that is. I found out it's a string with a weight at the bottom that you set up so that it goes completely vertical. And that's how you build a straight wall. You compare the wall to the line, and then you get straight. Easy enough. That makes sense, right. And God is using this metaphor as a standard of behavior for the northern kingdoms. He says, I have a standard. And if your wall is curved, it's going to be destroyed. And that is what he then says, about the northern kingdom, the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. God has sent a message of judgment to this northern kingdom. He says, If you violate my laws and my standards, and continue to do so there will be judgment. For that kingdom, that judgment meant the violence and destruction of the mighty armies of Syria, who are some of the worst conquerors in all of history, in their savagery and anger. Now, you can imagine, what would happen if someone walks into the White House, from say, I don't know Russia, and said, Guess what? God's going to destroy your kingdom and your country. I don't think whoever it was, we would listen to them simply because of their identity, where they came from. And that's a big piece of the rejection of this message. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel sees Amos, and he rejects this message for a couple of reasons. The first reason is, Amos is from Judah, an enemy kingdom. And he thinks the prophet is just there to stir up trouble. He says, Go flee away to the land of Judah, back to your home country and prophesy there. But don't come here with your divisive words and all of your bad news. rejects the message because of who Amos is. The second reason he rejects the message is because it is not in the plan. He says, this is the king's sanctuary. You can't say this about the king. Here we have one message. We support our kingdom. We do not say bad news. How dare you come out against our temple and our sanctuary. And what he says is, but never again prophesy at Bethel for it is the king sanctuary and it is the temple of the kingdom that none of this dis information and and conspiracy theories. We are all on message here. And then finally, he accuses Amos of selling out of doing it just for money. That's what he said. He says when he says flee to the land of Judah and eat bread there and prophesy there. He thinks that Amos is just a professional Prophet, who was there to stir up trouble and get YouTube subscriptions.
Notice what Amaziah doesn't do He doesn't actually attend to the message. He simply says, Amos, you're a bad guy. So I don't have to listen to you. Instead of hearing what God says, judgment is coming. And so they totally avoid the entire thing. God warns them says turn, and they reject it. And we know what the result is. Syria does come, they come with their armies, and they destroy the northern kingdom of Israel during the time of Isaiah. And the people go into exile, Jeroboam his family falls under the sword, and everything that Amos predicted, comes true. Now, you can understand why this might happen. You can understand why Jeroboam and Amaziah would reject a message like this. Nobody wants to hear bad news. And in fact, when news is contrary to what we expect, we find all sorts of ways of getting around it. Explain it away. We talk about something else. And it's even worse when it's an accusation. Jeroboam you have been unfaithful to God's promise. And that's a hard thing to hear. Whether you're a king, or a Christian 1000s of years later, you are someone who is hearing the message of God for the first time. If you are a sinner, and unfaithful. It's hard to hear. And one way to react to that is to do it Amaziah and Jeroboam did. Say, you're totally wrong. I've got it all set. We're all rights, and you're just a bad guy anyway. That's what Israel did. And that's what many people do. Instead of turning, repenting and receiving forgiveness, the bad news of God's judgment, they respond with anger. But there's another way. This is the way that happened with the prophet Jonah. Jonah was alive at just about the same time. And God went to him and said, to go to Nineveh with a very simple message. Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. That's a whole lot shorter than Amos is vision, right? Amos gets this beautiful thing of the plumb line and the wall and all of that. And there's Oracle's and Jonah gets one line. 40 days. That's it. Now, if you know the story, Jonah didn't want to go and after much goings on, and he eventually makes it to the city of Nineveh. And he says 40 days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. And what's amazing about this is what happens next. Nineveh does not have the history with God. The northern kingdom does. They don't have Moses and the prophets. They don't have the great confession that God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love that he forgives those who turned to him. They have none of that. A profit from an enemy city comes to them and says 40 days and destruction. That's it. And what does Nineveh do? These foreigners who do not know the true God they hear the words and repent. In fact, it is such a repentance that the king of the city commands that every person all the way down to the animals to put themselves was in sackcloth and ashes and fast with the hope that this God who only offered one line would turn from his anger and relent. What a different response from people who had no idea who God was just some foreign prophet of a foreign god. And yet they hear the word of judgments, and they repent. And you know how the story goes, and God sees their repentance. And he turns to Jonah and he says, I will relent of the disaster, that I was going to bring them. Which makes Jonah really mad. He wants a Syria destroyed, because they're the big bad. They're the ones who will not so very long from now come in and kill that northern kingdom, with all of their violence, and wrath. And God sends Jonah to preserve this city from His judgment, so we could use them against Israel. What a difference in their reaction is to the message of judgment from God. Jonah comes and says, You will be destroyed if they don't react in anger, or accusations, or accuse him of disinformation to repent. And God, forgive. This message is a good example for everyone who hears a message of judgment from God. Because without a message of judgments about our sin, there is no forgiveness. without accepting the hard news that comes from God's Word, we will never know that we needed a Savior, who would take the penalty for our sins onto his body and give us forgiveness. And we all know this because well, we are here. You have heard this message and believe. But for the Christian, this message is ongoing, and sometimes surprising. Because sometimes the piece of our life that is filled with sin we overlook. And we need to hear the message again. And it's hard. But accepting that means a path to forgiveness. responding with anger means we turn aside from the gospel. hearing the message of judgment, and saying I repent is the only way to move through it to the forgiveness and reconciliation that Christ offers. That's what Jonah helps us to see. And it's the same thing for the world, right? God did not send Jonah out into the world or to the northern kingdom with smooth words and kind offers. He said, judgment is coming. And that always came with the offer of repentance, and forgiveness. And it's only through that message of judgment that the world can have the forgiveness we enjoy. When they run into their sin, and see that they need a savior, just like us. Sure, they may react like Amaziah or King Herod for that matter, with anger with hostility. But it still means it's the only way to bring the people we love to the gospel. It's a hard pill to swallow this judgment. But it's the only way for salvation
because To understand and know that you need a Savior knows that you need to need. It means that you need to know that you lack this message, just like amis, just like Jonah, just like John the Baptist or Jesus. This message of our sin needs to be believed and accepted, even when it's hard. Salvation only comes on the other side of it by the grace of Jesus Christ, in response to our repentance. In his name, amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
He's to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Today we're talking about the reading from Jeremiah, about shepherds. This Sunday is kind of a good shepherd Sunday, we have a couple of them during the church year, where we talk about Christ as the shepherd of his church. One comes during this time in the season of Pentecost, and we have another one during the time of Easter, pointing to Jesus as our shepherd. Both times we read Psalm 23. And look at other Shepherd readings. And so we have one from Jeremiah. And Mark, that points to this Good Shepherd idea. Now you might be looking at Mark and you're saying, there's no shepherd there. You have to read into what Mark is doing. He takes them to a desolate place. They are like sheep without a shepherd. And he sets them down in the green grass, which points us to our song. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul to reading from Jeremiah, though, has some harsh words for the shepherds of God's people at the time. It says, Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. I think it is likely that Jeremiah the prophet is not talking about the appropriate ways to gather a flock of sheep, and raise them to the best effects that these shepherds are likely metaphorical. Right? Who are the shepherds Jeremiah is talking about? Normally, when we think of the Good Shepherd, we think about this pastoral scene, where you've got this lonely Shepherd out with the flock, he's got the cool staff and the robe. Maybe you've seen the stained glass window with Jesus picking up the lamb over his shoulder, and he's walking them in. It's usually out in the field, right? Or there's a forest or something like that. It's a rural scene. Because we think of sheep, as rural, we often don't get the idea that Shepherd was the predominant metaphor for the kings of Israel. And they're a political class. This is because the great king, David, came from being a shepherd, to being a king. Second Samuel chapter five says to David, and the Lord said to you, you shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be Prince over Israel. Similarily Matthew two verse six quotes Micah, when it says, Oh Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. It's a fun note, that in the old red hymnal, they had Latin titles for all of the psalms that they would read, because it's the old red hymnal and why not? Most of the Latin titles came from the first line, except for Psalm 23. The Latin title for that one is dominate ragged May, which is the Lord rules me. The Lord is my king, is the title for Psalm 23. One of our hymns points that out to the king of Love, My Shepherd is His goodness fail if never. That's the summary a him version of Psalm 23. In the Old Testament, kings were the shepherds of God's people. And their political leaders and rulers were like that. So Jeremiah is pointing to the political class of his day, and saying, Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my past. Drew, and you have scattered my flock and driven them away, and you have not attended to them, the whole, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. This is the kind of proclamation that was going out in the Old Testament at this time, Jeremiah was a prophet during the exile in Babylon had come in, destroyed the kingdom. And he and Ezekiel were around the same time pointing out all of the bad things that those kings had done. And Ezekiel Similarily, comes out against the shepherds of God's people who instead of protecting them, and destroy them, and use them for their own benefit. Jeremiah is saying, Woe to you who scattered the flock and divide them and cause them to fight against each other. Woe to you, who don't treat them like you should, as a shepherd, who should love and care for the sheep. They didn't care about their nation. They didn't care about their people. And most of all, they didn't care about the covenant that God had made with their nation, Israel. And instead, they use their power for their own good, scattered the people, and enriched themselves. Sounds a little bit like politics, doesn't it? It's a little bit like what every political age has ever done. The leaders of the people use their power and their authority and their positions to divide, scatter and consumed. Race for it in today's sermon is about politics. And we're about to head into an election season. And I'm sure that you will hear that it is the most important election in US history, just like the last one, and the one before that. Our politicians, the metaphorical shepherds of our day, and the industry that is around them. They have the same ends and goals, generally, as those great shepherds of Jeremiah's day, their rhetoric. Their message is division, and fear. They want to divide us and put our hope in them. Their goal is to turn us from the bad guys, which is the red or the blue team, depending on who you listen to. And put your hope in there guy, which is the other side, the red team, or the blue team, depending on who you listen to. The problem is that they are so strong in their way of speaking of that our temptation in this season, is to turn our hearts away from our true shepherd, Jesus Christ, the only one who provides the only one who gives peace, the only one who can truly take care of us by His death and resurrection. They want us to think about them as the providers and them as the protectors. They do it in two ways. The first one is they play on our fears. Politics, at least lately has become mostly about the really big problems. Right? If you flip on your favorite or at least favorite cable news station, they will constantly be talking about the big issues. wars on the other side of the world. I don't know if you know that but there are wars going on. Climate change, education, the economy, inflation and don't you know it? Red team
or Blue Team whichever The one is responsible for it all. And this is especially true. If you spend time looking at news media. Their entire goal is to get your eyeballs and your clicks, to get you to spend time really worried about things that are far away. Because then you will read more, then you will watch more. And then they can monetize it. And sometimes that creates huge amounts of anxiety. And it gets us to worry about things that are far away, things that we can't control. And that anxiety turns us from the peace of God that passes all understanding and causes us to fear our human enemies. And that fear. Well, it just can't go away when it's constantly talking about these big things. Because the problem is that all of these really big things that nobody can control. There's simply a symptom of the big problem underneath it all. Sin and death. Because if we solve one problem, another will come up. If we take care of one thing, another big one will come up with wars don't stop. They are always here. Where does the Christian find peace and our Savior, Jesus Christ. As it says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul. See, we have a shepherd and King, Jesus Christ, who is the only one who actually rules over all of creation. He is the only one who can truly govern all things, who takes care of all things. He is the one who sits on the throne at the right hand of the Father way up in heaven. And all things are under his feet. And we know that he will take care of you. Because he came and he sacrificed his life on the cross for you. And he rose from the dead for you. And it's that love that motivates him from his place in heaven until the day that he returned. Which means we can let God worry about that stuff. Right? All the big things that you and I can't control that the politicians say they can go hand wave away, if you just elect them. That's God's job. He will take care of our job is to focus on what we can control the people around us that God has called us to serve. Don't let this election steal the peace of God that passes all understanding. Put your hearts and your hope and your trust in Him. So that's the fear, right? Our politicians and our political class want us to fear the enemy and the big issues. They also want us to love them. And they do it by turning things into a team sport. Right? You've heard me say red team and Blue Team. Have you noticed that the way people talk about our campaigns is a little bit like they talk about the Super Bowl. They've got like a pregame show. And they talk about this candidate his speaking style and what's this campaign strategy and how are they going to do this and who are they talking to? And it's all like X's and O's on the football field. And none of it is actually policy. They've turned it into team sports. Because we love our teams. We love our tribes. And you know this because some of you are Padres fans. And you love your team, and you're willing to cheer for them, you are willing to put on their clothes and wear their hats because you identify with the place you're from, and you'll love it. And when we turn politics into that, it becomes a little bit about your identity. And about your heart, instead of what will the candidates do. And then they build on that by saying, I am the only one who can save you. elect me, I will take care of you, the other team, they hate you, but I, I alone am your Scion.
They can't do it. They're not our team. They don't have the power. They don't actually care. They don't have the power to take care of the problems. They'd say they do. They don't actually speak for you. They don't love you. They are just using you to get elected. There is only one who can actually fight for us. There is only one who can actually solve the big problems that we are facing. And you guessed it, it's our King, Jesus Christ. He is the one who protects us against sin, death, and the devil. As it says, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me, your rod and your staff. They comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Our King, Jesus Christ is the one who promises to solve the big problem to take care of us both now and on the day when he returned. So if you are worried about inflation, guess what? When Jesus comes back, that will be solved, I promise. If you're worried about things in Ukraine and Israel, and when Jesus comes back, that war will be over. If you're worried about climate, and climate will be iMovie made new. On the day he returned back to all our problems will be over. Because when he does, he will call us from the grave and make all things new. He is the only one who can solve all of those problems. And he gives you a promise that you can trust him with a promise that we know we can keep. When he prepares the table before you here in this place. The table we will eat very shortly. This is God with you. Seal and sign of His presence so that you know the shepherd will never leave you. See, God has established a great shepherd. He says I will set shepherds over them who will care for them. And they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed. Neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. Our great shepherd Jesus Christ is the only one who can do that. As we consider this election season, vote for the person you want to vote for or not. If that's your choice, advocate for the policies that you want, or not, if that's your choice, but just remember, we have one king who can actually do something one king with real power, who died for you and rose for you. He is our peace. In Jesus name. Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
