Well, another podcast today and another chance to have conversation. you know, one of the things I realized as a pastor is I know you're not supposed to have favorites in the Bible like favorite characters maybe
for favorite children.
Well, no. Well, that said in the Bible.
Oh, cuz one of my favorites is sitting right here.
That's great.
y'all want to guess who it is? I can't tell you.
It's me.
Oh. Oh, one who said I will not say a word.
Oh. Anyway, let me get back to three favorites. Three favorites.
That's fine. but I have favorite books of the Bible. This is really an interesting way to start this podcast. I know, but it's fun. It is. It's conversations that we're having.
It's after Thanksgiving. Everyone is feeling
satiated by their food and maybe they didn't get into major arguments.
There you go.
But now they're gearing up for Christmas. Whoa.
So, let me get try to get back to where I was going with this.
Yes, pastor.
One of my favorite Old Testament books and Old Testament characters is the prophet Jeremiah.
the weeping prophet.
The weeping prophet who had a 40-year ministry for the Lord, speaking for the Lord, and it was not fun. he was told by God that nothing he said was going to be received by the people. Israel was in that place of just before they get deported into Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar beats him. And so much of Jeremiah is hard. It's hard judgment on the injustices in the world and the injustices, but Then midway through the book in chapters 29, 30, and 31, all of a sudden there's this surprising entrance of the grace of God and a surprising place of hope that seems to come out of nowhere. and one of the favorite verses for me that we can talk maybe a little bit about is in the 31st chapter when God says, "At this time, declares the Lord, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel and they shall be my people. And obviously it's speaking to Israel at that time. But I think it's again a message to the people of God that who we are today. And this is what the Lord says. The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness. When Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from a far from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you. and those two themes in those verses of grace in the wilderness and an everlasting love
are really powerful to me.
I think last podcast we gave a shout out to our new friends in the Pacific Northwest and one of the things that was startling to me is that these men and their wives and children are working in an area of the country that is hard. they don't necessarily count their churches in numbers as much as depth. And these men and women are really really working hard and oftentimes not getting a lot of response to it because that area of the country is particularly not very friendly towards churches. But these men and their families have done an incredible job of being persistent. And I think that what I envision was I saw grace in the wilderness in their lives. they struggle to make budget to get health insurance. they don't have big crowds, but they do have deep crowds of people that come. But it's I think what I've I came away with from being with them is how different it is here in the south and everywhere else in the country, I'm sure. But that they have really been in the wilderness, but they've also been visited with grace. Just that abounding, bountiful grace that God has poured out on them which gives them the ability to survive the wilderness.
Yeah. And I the truth of the matter is I think you're that's accurate, but the truth is we all have our wildernesses.
Yes.
And what I love about the grace of God is it just is infinite. we think about God's grace and we think about celebrating his grace when things go well. We're grateful for the grace of God for us in our lives. But in those wilderness times, even the wilderness of my own of my own heart
where sometimes I'm not walking with the Lord the way I should. Maybe there's a lack of intimacy, not his fault, mine. and yet his grace appears there. and it appears to me as an individual, it appears to us as his people. that infinite grace of God is overwhelming. you know because I grew up in this church world where Christianity was more more of a performance-based and if you weren't performing well somehow God was absent from your life and yet as he was for Jeremiah and the people of God in the midst of the struggles they faced he is for us today his grace is infinite it has no end but then that second piece of it is God saying he's loved us with an everlasting love which is that covenantal love of God that there's no really no other comparison here on this earth to that type of And then when he goes on, he says, God is saying, "Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you." It's God's faithfulness.
In spite of my lack of faithfulness, he's the one that is faithful. And to get into my brain and into my heart, his enduring, steadfast, everlasting love and that his faithfulness never stops is I mean, I've got to sit with that. It's hard to like right now I'm I know he loves me. I know it's everlasting intellectually, but to sit with that and just kind of know in the deepest core of my soul, that regardless of where I'm at, wilderness or prosperity or whatever, that he loves me. And we, you know, we use that term so loosely all the time. I love you. I love my dog. I love my kids. I love my house. I love We use that word love so lightly. But when God says, "I have an everlasting love for you," there's not one ition on that. Not one.
Yeah. And it's unlike anything else we know. you know, we've been married for 47 years and we've known each other's love, but there are conditions for everybody.
Yeah.
And so, we probably all have lost friends. We have all, had people in our lives who we thought would always be there and they're no longer there for whatever the reason may be. there are people who will listen to this podcast who have been through the agonies of divorce.
Yeah.
So, so there's nothing that even comes close to comparing to an everlasting love and a and a continual faithfulness, a continual pursuit of us. And yet, that's the God who we serve and who we love. And that's where I it was for Jeremiah and his people in that day, but I think it is for us, too. This surprising place of hope
in the midst of struggles. I mean, there's a lot of things in this world today that we don't like and for good reason.
Yeah.
And yet the one thing that I'm always reminded of is he is still on his throne. But more than that, he still pours out his grace to me every day and his love never ends.
And I love in Jeremiah how God comes to him. I mean, the guy's got to be depressed most of the time because nobody's listening to him. He isn't married. Maybe that's a good thing because he doesn't have his wife like Joe did. kidnapping him to curse God and die, but he's he has no friends. He's out there completely by himself and he's bringing this message that Israel doesn't want to hear. And he's discouraged and there I think there's a somewhere toward the end maybe. I don't know where it is where Jeremiah gets real discouraged and kind of lashes out at God in a different way and God says that's enough because I am life.
Yeah. It's when he compares God to an intermittent dried up brook.
Yeah.
Which in essence, I believe, is saying and you don't give me life. And God puts up with a lot from Jeremiah of his complaints and of his just unloading his heart. When Jeremiah accuses God of not being life is when God says, "You need to stop and repent." and I it would be true for us. There's a lot of things that we may say, "I don't like this God. I don't like the path you've got me on. I don't like the plan you have for me. But I don't ever want to get to the place where I don't call him life."
And I'm just amazed at how God continued to come after Jeremiah. And in that instance when he thinks that God is like a dried up broke and God tells him he needs to repent there, that is loving. That's his everlasting love saying the place that you're in is not good. It will destroy you. And when he comes to us when we're in the wilderness or when we're in the midst of something so very hard and we begin to become unfaithful, he still loves us enough to tell us to repent and to turn back to him. Because when we turn away from him, we think we're doing it because it's the better thing to do because we can't stand what God is doing or not doing. But that's the path of misery and that's where, you know, Jeremiah was heading towards that. He was, you know, a kind of miserable for a long time. And like you said, God put up with his complaining as he does with us. But I don't get that. I don't get that kind of love. But I'm so glad that I have it.
Yeah. And so the way I describe what does it mean to struggle well is I lean my face into Christ
in all things. Well, and as I lean my face in, what I want to what I will see and what I will find is the infinite grace of God even in the wilderness and the everlasting love of God.
And that's our hope for those of you who are listening that no matter where you're at, you'll lean into Jesus and you'll see his infinite grace poured out for you and his everlasting love. Just make some time for that.
Make some time for it. Have a great day.